Ramayana is both spiritual and socio-political

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RajivMalhotraDiscussion/conversations/topics/15103

Rajiv Malhotra responds (marked in blue or red) to a forum member's comments quoting Hindus who attack TBFS and clearly appear to subscribe to Sheldon Pollock's Hinduphobic ideas. Emphasis and highlights are ours. Also, Rajiv ji shares some important updates on the impact of the Swadeshi Indology conference series.
 
I came across a group of people, who subscribe to manasataramgini (@blog_supplement) line of thinking, with comments like these in the context of chapter 5 of the book "Battle for Sanskrit":

1) "....that the ramayana played a great role in moulding the nascent political consciousness of medieval Hindus against the evil of islam. this is something iirc rajiv malhotra or someone else had a problem with. IMO we should be proud of ramayana's role and openly state it was the great itihasa which inspired hindus to fight islam"

[Rajiv: Ramayana is both (A) spiritual and (B) social-political. That is the role of the Avatara and it also applies to Mahabharata. It is spirituality in action, the divine manifesting to play a role in the laukika realm. So his assumption about me is false. All my career I have tried to argue against the otherworldly interpretations and have showed that our exemplars were very engaged socially and politically. The problem with Pollock is his REMOVAL OF (A). His is a non/anti spiritual interpretation. That is the issue I focus on. My interpretation is that politics is there, however not in the secular sense, but as rooted in dharma. To understand my purva-paksha these lazy Hindus need to read more fully both Pollock and my rebuttal. They are too tamasic and want to cut-paste here and there either to dismiss it, or to claim it as their own for quick blogs/lectures.]

"RM attempts to dissuade the reader from thinking Ramayana had anything to do with modern Hindutva movement because he attempts to shun BJP/RSS/VHP and condemn their ways. Also the use of "secular" for vyavgarik realm is rather offputting".

[Rajiv: Wrong again. Pollock's claim I refute is that: (A) modern Hinduism is DISCONTINUOUS from past Vedic tradition, (B) that it was fabricated by Swami Vivekananda, (C) that this fabrication borrowed heavily from Christianity and the West, and (D) that this was done to overcome Vivekananda's inferiority complex.
Furthermore, the idiot is one more example of jealous Hindus always trying to create a wedge between me and RSS and/or with Swami Vivekananda.]

"i just feel that there is nothing wrong in describing ramayana as a book which teaches us to totally exterminate evil.. of which mohammedanism is clearly an egregious example. pollock might whine about it as he is a frigging yahoodi saboteur and has duty in defending his fellow Abrahamic Muslims.. but for hindus if the ramayana did indeed inspire anti Muslim violence then its a holier than holy book than what could be normally ascribed to"

[Rajiv: This person did not read Pollock or my response. Probably saw some 2nd/3rd hand commentaries of my work. The core Pollock thesis I refute is that Ramayana was not popular prior to Muslim invasion and Hindu kings popularized it artificially specifically to fight against Muslims. Implication of this claim is that it lacks any spiritual legitimacy, and that it is solely a decide to fight against Muslims.

Is the Hindu critic in above quote agreeing with this Pollock view? I find such shallow Hindu critiques too stupid but they are common, unfortunately.

 ]

Basically, allegation is that Rajiv is promoting Gandhian line of "Non-Violence". Wonder What Rajiv has to say on it.

Regards,

[]

Rajiv: Several points I want to make:
...Why is it not possible for experienced IKs to respond to very simple allegations? Am I supposed to play father figure for every IK? When will they grow up, take responsibility?
The individuals he quotes have been hounding me for long time. These Hindus are the 3rd front we have to fight - jealous, incompetent, opportunistic, lazy but over-ambitious, no tapasya, but lots of opinions. Pls do NOT drag me to have to respond to them. I need to move on in my research and have 15 books to finish, much deeper to go in my journey. The 1st front is western Indologists. 2nd front is Indian Left/sepoys. 3rd front is Hindu pseudo-intellectuals popping up everywhere but with little competence. Mostly a hit and run style all over the space.
The Swadeshi Indology conf is their opportunity to contribute serious scholarship if they have something important to say.
The SI organizers have an independent team of senior scholars who do peer review of every paper submitted. Neither side knows the other identity, so these are blind reviews. The problem is they find very very few Hindu so-called intellectuals to be able to write proper papers. Mostly opinions, too lazy and lacking rigor. The reviewers end up rejecting most papers received. This pisses off the old school Hindu established scholars, who are not used to being rejected. They assume accolades due to senior status or network of contacts, or some prestigious affiliations. IFI rejecting them causes anger.
What should IFI do? If it lowers standard to become popular, then it might as well fold up, because too many organizations exist holding conferences, meetings, seminars, etc already. But these lack original research as pre-requisite for presenting. This is the gap IFI fills.
Luckily, SI1 and SI2 are being v successful in training new, young scholars. These are mostly unknown names because they are not in the social media making noises with opinions. Very hard work with few solid successes each time. So it will be a while before we get the 108 we need.
SI1 papers are ready as a 400-page book to be finalized for publishing. All papers focus on Pollock - so the man opining above ought to have sent his paper to SI for evaluation.
SI2 will likewise turn into a major research book on Pollock specifically.
In addition, SI2 will have 2 major single-author monographs each a detailed academic analysis of Pollock on some specific item. One is in fact on Pollock's Ramayana. (100+ pages each and these will turn into two major volumes.) So in Si 1 & 2 we will have at least 4 major books coming out.
Starting with TBFS, this means we will have FIVE VOLUMES OF RESPONSE TO POLLOCK, from a team of 25+ scholars.
Never before has a team of solid scholars taken up one specific Western Indology school and give such a thorough purva paksha and uttara paksha. This is what Arvind Sharma told me when he complimented me for starting this initiative.
There are more concrete outputs coming with heavy impact that are to be announced shortly.
Next we will move beyond Pollock and deal with other Indology opponents one by one. This is what I am up to. I only respect scholars who are serious and not casually hitting out here and there. Hence other IKs should deal with them and not waste my time.

Question: Why are you targeting Sheldon Pollock personally, i.e. one man?

An important point that we want people to understand. Please read the following FAQ closely. Also read the comment by Sonal Mansingh.

Question: Why are you targeting Sheldon Pollock personally (i.e. one man)?

Answer: We are never targeting anyone personally, but critiquing and responding to their ideas. We see these ideas as a serious school of thought and not as one person’s. Before choosing a target for purva-paksha and uttara-paksha, one must ask the following kinds of questions:

·         What is the specific harm being caused to us by a given target, which we hope to undermine?

·         What further high-value targets become within our range once we have successfully engaged this target?

·         What does our team gain through this fight, in terms of learning new sophisticated methods?

·         What would be the demoralizing effect on the opponent’s supporters, and how would this boost the morale of our support base?

·         How did our tradition respond to similar situations?

Such an inquiry led to the following position regarding the above question.

1.      Following the purva-paksha system:

a.      The purva/uttara paksha system of argumentation on behalf of one’s tradition requires naming the opponent, citing his/her specific works and then giving a sound, logical critique. It is not done by sweeping generalizations of opponents. It is essentially a “case studies” method in which specific instances of differences get argued with specific opponents (similar in some ways to the famous Harvard business school case studies approach). While a general treatise with critique can be ignored, a direct critique of named opponents who have stature is non-ignorable, which is important.

b.      There is a difference between doing a purva-paksha and developing a new shastra/siddhanta on a given subject. Before a new shastra can emerge, one must first clear the table of existing theories by doing specific purva-paksha on the major ones. This is how the system of knowledge continually renews and refreshes itself. Ignoring the opponent was not seen as a worthy thing.

c.       The target should be a leader representing an important school of thought, one with lineage, followers and traction. In other words, we like to critique an entire ecosystem.

2.      Harm being caused that we must remedy: Sheldon Pollock is not just an individual but also the leaders of an important school of thought causing the following problems that are very serious, concrete and immediate:

a.      Harmful content and substance: There are vast and deep problems with Pollock’s positions, and they often remain camouflaged beneath his surface praise and emotional appeals. The book, The Battle For Sanskrit (TBFS), started exposing these. The first Swadeshi Indology conference (SI-1) validated these concerns and added more substance to the criticisms. The next conference is going to take this criticism to a much higher level. For specific issues with his scholarship, the reader is referred to TBFS and the SI-1 web site. But as a sample, he alleges that: (1) the Sanskrit tradition from its beginning has been socially oppressive, (2) shastras by design have prevented creative thinking, (3) Sanskrit texts contained toxins that influenced the Nazis to commit the holocaust, (4) the Ramayana contains seeds of violence and this has been provoked against Muslims, (5), mimamsa was developed in response to Buddhism, as a way to codify biases, (6) rasa entered late in the tradition, and even later it was reinterpreted (by Rupa Goswami) to introduce sacredness, (7) kavya has from the beginning been a device for kings’ projection of power in an aesthetic manner; and so on.

b.      Hijacking Sringeri: Prior to TBFS, he already had provisional commitment from Sringeri mattha to set up Adi Shankara Chairs in US Ivy Leagues, with Pollock himself in charge of selecting and directing the academic programs.

c.       Hinduphobic parampara: He has trained and influenced one of the largest and most influential group of students and peers. His importance through his writings is well attested by the Western academic establishment. These followers include many sepoy scholars/journalists whose works are filled with venom against Hinduism. Many who wonder “why bother critiquing Pollock?” must wake up and discover that many individuals they are fighting are trained by him and/or operating under his ideological influence. Rather than fighting isolated instances, we must get to the roots of the system that produces such instances.

d.      Official recognition & infiltration: His followers have infiltrated the official establishments of higher learning, media and education, and he has received official awards. This has made his positions officially endorsed in India. Hence they need to be examined closely and evaluated objectively.

e.      Murty Classics Library: A direct and immediate consequence of TBFS was a major petition against the MCLI, which triggered response and counter-response from both sides. This brought to the surface the previously hidden faces of Pollockism. In fact, the recent Vande Mantram Library initiative is an example of a direct result of the awareness created by TBFS.

3.      Knowledge being acquired by our scholars and further purva-paksha opportunities:

a.      Because very few of our traditional scholars have done purva-paksha on the latest Western Indology, this work has required them to learn about many areas of Western thought, research methodologies and institutional mechanisms. Some of these insights may help us upgrade our competitiveness in the global discourse. This knowledge better equips us to encounter with many other Western schools besides just Pollock, from a much deeper level than our scholars have done in the past.

b.      Subsequent purva-paksha targets under consideration include: Romila Tnapar, Wendy Doniger, Western(ized) feminists, to name a few. In each case, we wish to adopt a focused and sharply targeted approach in order to maximize the impact on the ground.

4.      Psychological warfare:

a.      By toppling the leader of a school, the followers of that school get demoralized. New recruits into their program become harder to attract. This already happened to other intellectual leaders we targeted in the past.

b.      Simultaneously, we are witnessing a boost to the self-confidence of our young scholars. They are becoming fearless and better skilled at debating in open forums.

c.       An important quality to cultivate is being non-ignorable. This cannot be achieved by criticizing dead scholars (who will not talk back), dead empires, marginal players, or over abstracted and over-generalized opposing views. To trigger lively debate that can transform the discourse requires one to name names, be direct and sharp – precisely the qualities exhibited in our tradition of debates in the past.

5.      Waking up some tamasic, lazy and pompous “insiders”:

a.      It is our experience that many “insider” scholars, including and especially some with big reputations and high society profiles, are pathetically out of touch with the latest scholarship, lazy to do any new reading in a serious manner, and even deficient in analytical/debating experience to engage Westerns with confidence. Some of them are also sold out through various forms of patronage. Hence they tend to be cynical about such attempts as the Swadeshi Indology movement where hard work and original, non-emotional scholarship is being required for membership.

b.      The strategy adopted by SI is to welcome all established scholars on the terms of rigor and objectivity, rather than mental blockages or emotions. Many senior scholars are already solidly in the SI movement and their leadership is given paramount importance.

c.       The good news is that we find the new, young scholars to be very enthusiastic and competent in this pursuit. This fits well with our goal to develop next generation specialized teams of scholars with different kinds of subject-matter expertise.

d.      The old-school scholars who did not make much impact but spent their energies traveling for events and enjoying the limelight, now feel threatened by a new stock of scholars that are bypassing them. There is also blatant jealousy on display at times. We do not want our scholars to get discouraged by this, and one purpose of writing this is to prepare them for such cynicisms.

Now, here is some additional context.

• When I was researching on Pollock in 2015, I went around many senior scholars in India for leads, help, sources, etc. Did not want to rediscover what was already known to our people.
• Result: Very disappointing. Hardly any serious work had been or was being done, little interest to get off their rear ends and work hard, lots of bombast/ego, pride, emotions, etc. 
• But not surprised because i have been through this inertia in India for 25 years on various topics.
• Basically our "scholars" want to get maximize personal benefit with minimum effort/investment of their own.
• Case study: One retired Delhi U prof who is well known as natya shatra "expert" (though scantily published) wanted to save himself the effort of reading Pollock. So he felt that giving me enough chai and a samosa at India Int'l Center cafeteria would allow him to pick my brain while he and his wife would sit and take notes. This would let him beat me by getting a quick blog out of his own. Serious books are unnecessary as per this lot, because it is too much effort. Result is that the western Indologists call the shots when it comes to prescribing books in colleges worldwide even though the subject is Indology.
• I told him he would have to wait for my book to come out first, as leaking out the critical research and responses by me would not be appropriate. In the end he and his wife gave up trying. 
• Within a couple of weeks from this "samosa-based research" attempt, his article suddenly appeared in IndiaFacts attacking Pollock and Rohan Murthy. Note that when I met and told him about Pollock, he had only hesard about him tangentially and lacked even the basic idea of what Pollock's work or controversy were about. Now he was writing like an overnight "expert". However, as expected, there was no substance in his article - merely emotional allegations based on how everything wasgenerally wrong with the West. So no need to spend effort reading Pollock.
• Fast forward several months. My tbfs book comes out, gets rave reviews by top Sanskrit scholars in India, there are 25 events, lots of awareness. This man wants to ignore all this material because it is overwhelming to him. He now wants to make it seem that it was unimportant (because he could/did nothing about the topic).
• Next comes a big surprise. Last week there was some meeting in Delhi to create a rival to Murthy Classics Library - an initiative inspired by tbfs and the subsequent petition against MCLI. One of the speakers presents a summary of the Swadeshi Indology movement. Guess who is the top cynic speaking out against "conferences targeting Pollock?" Its our DU friend who last year was desperate to get masala on Pollock so he could put out a very rapid article critical of Pollock. Contradicting his own previous desires/article, last week he argued: we must not attack one man's work. He gives every reason not to be so focused in conferences. 
• Of course, our team of three SI scholars argued back and explained the importance of specialized. focused analyses.

In light of this, I decided we must do a FAQ on why we targeted Pollock per se, not personally but as a school of Indology. 

The link above takes you to a summary of the importance of specializing. Some of it is taken from TBFS.

I hope serious scholars will take the time and study it. This issue is important for us to debate. As I noted in this attachment, Indian scholarly events are too unproductive, more like flea markets with substandard speakers regurgitating their same old material for many years.

As you can see, so much of our fight is internal, with our own people.

regards,

rajiv

Smt. Sonal Mansingh, who is a famous performer and expert on Indian Nritya/Natya responds:
Rajiv
Apropos ur 28th August mail: this Naatya Shastra 'scholar' has threatened to expose classical dancers who according to him,  know nothing abt it. He is more aggressive now than before having been brought as Exe Trustee of most prestigious Govt cultural organisation. In any case, Pompous pretentiousness is the hallmark of most scholars & academicians, Indian or non-Indian. Sincerely
Sonal Mansingh

Rajiv: Sonal ji, I have always considered the performers (and you are among the foremost of this era) as our exemplars, not the cynical bookworms sitting on the sideline passing comments...
 

Why did Kalavai Venkat abuse me?

Below is an article by Sejuti Banerjee which first appeared here.

A couple of days back, I heard of an interesting conversation about Rajiv Malhotra (RM), author of the phenomenal book “The Battle For Sanskrit” (TBFS) on Kalavai Venkat’s (KV) FB page, so I went on over to check it out. 

I had heard that KV was critical of RM’s work mainly because he was a big fan of Shatawadhani Ganesh (SG), so I considered it a golden opportunity to study the back-and-forth between the different parties and perhaps gain some new insights on the situation. It’s been a very old habit of mine to always test any idea I may have formed in my head with new inputs as and when available. I always felt this improved my understanding of things. 

So imagine my surprise, when I see that he has written the words “RM and semi-literate followers”. Yes, I follow RM’s work. Yes, I have been inspired by him. Yes, I think he’s managed to do what no one managed all these years. Yes, I think he has sacrificed his life for dharma. But how does this make me semi-literate?

At first, I was taken aback at this display of condescending animosity. Because what have I ever done or said to KV? I had never even heard of his name before in my life! I make a decent living and no one has questioned my literacy before!!! But then I decided to read on. Maybe he was actually a decent guy with a filthy mouth. I had seen a few of those after all.

But the rest was not much better. In fact, to put it in a single sentence, I was disappointed. What was happening there was basically some venomous RM bashing with some protests from those who know him better. I noticed some things KV seemed to be doing persistently: 

Passing Value Judgments 

Some commentators were concerned about the security breach at Sringeri that informed Pollock about what was transpiring between RM and Sringeri. Without knowing anything about the situation, KV immediately jumped to attack RM. “Always take such anecdotal claims from RM with a pinch of salt”, he said. In fact others had to tell him how wrong he was, because he didn’t know the ground situation, didn’t know the facts, that actually, the situation was far worse than RM let on out of respect. 

On the other hand, when it came to SG, KV said with great sureness that “Ganesh declined and gave a very pointed, honest and compassionate answer, in private to the intermediary, for declining”. Elsewhere, he also said that he didn’t know SG personally, hadn’t met him, etc. So he didn’t know SG, he wasn’t there when SG refused the invitation and yet he was all praises for his behavior.

So in this case one can only conclude that passing value judgments is his nature, at times he supports people with it and at other times, he attacks people with it. 

Trying To Divide People 

In his attempt to alienate people from RM, KV tried every trick:

1. He said “Traditionalists have gone out of the way to rally behind RM, perhaps out of ignorance” (one wonders if this is a tremendous show of respect for traditionalists on KV’s part), then “despite canards he spreads about them”. He asks, “Why should that be tolerated? Why should we stand behind someone who is throwing traditionalists under the bus time and again”. This after RM has repeatedly said that he is doing purva paksha and he wouldn’t be able to do uttara paksha without them. After he also said that “I want to provoke the insiders in order to get rid of me and then they will start doing this work because if the insiders start doing this work I can retire finally, but until the insiders do this job I’m going to be around”. To distort such pure intentions seems unethical.
2. He says, “It is also important to remember that RM is also positioning himself as an alternative to Sitaram Goel et al and actively discounts them. Those individuals made contributions orders of magnitude higher than RM”. This sounded like sly praise while attacking RM, pretending not to know about RM’s extensive bibliographies and the specialized nature of his work, which requires expediency. KV did the same with Aditi Banerjee and Aravindan Neelakandan, praising them and asking how RM would have coped without them (as if RM had not credited them for their contributions). 
3. Direct attack: “I would oppose any traditionalist from supporting RM unless he publicly apologizes for his unethical conduct vs. Ganesh. I would also want to see those traditional scholars, who endorsed TBFS, to retract their endorsement for the reasons given toward the end of my critique”. This on the assumption that SG has never slighted or insulted RM in the past. Why does KV get into personalities? There may be so many things that may have transpired between two people, why is it fair to assume that SG has never wronged RM? 

Downplaying The Severity Of The Situation 

KV says “But why this obsession with Indology...Look at the phenomenal contributions of Ganesh on aesthetics. Who would do those things? How many on this planet can even discuss something like alaṇkāra lakṣaṇa with erudition? Why should the finest battle Indologists? That should rather be the job of tier 2 intellectuals.”

Then again, “Why this obsession with Pollock and a bunch of Indologists? Why is refuting such works more important than reviving precious traditions as Ganesh has been doing?”

In Bangla we have a saying that goes like this “shaat kanda Ramayan pore Sita kar pita” (after reading all 7 parts of the Ramayana you are asking whose father is Sita).

KV doesn’t seem to understand that BOTH these things are equally important. We enjoy our lives within the boundaries of a country because those boundaries are protected. If no one fights the war against Indology, there will BE no aesthetics to discuss with erudition. Only watered-down ghosts of what they once were. Is this desirable? Quite honestly, reading these lines makes me think that KV hasn’t read TBFS. And he’s now produced a review of a review of a review of TBFS. Great.

He says, “Hindu battles have just commenced and they will last another 60 years against the academy. So, I wouldn't like to protect a writer on day 1 of the battle and weaken the forces in the long term”. One commentator openly said that it was this bickering that was the problem, that he was losing all hope. But KV continued with his tirade possibly because he had a mission to accomplish. He had to demoralize all the people and cause a rift between traditionalists and RM (because so many of them are in fact grateful for his work and supportive of him). This would help Pollock and party. So on the pretext of weakening the forces in the long term, he is destroying their morale today, which doesn’t make any sense at all! 

Fooling Gullible Hindus 

At one point, one of the speakers mentioned that SG had been seen sharing stage with Sudha Murthy of MCLI fame. KV tried to brush this aside as insignificant, forgetting that every society agrees that a man’s association is indicative of his nature. In English we say, birds of the same feather flock together. In Bangla we say, sat sanga swarga vas asat sanga narak vas (with the right association you land in heaven and with the wrong association you land in hell). The point is, association has always been an indicator of who or what a person represents. Besides, kshatriya dharma may require a person to go everywhere out of expediency. But when a person has dedicated his entire life to selfless study, he is considered by all as practicing Brahmin dharma in which case his hobnobbing with deshdrohis and sanskriti drohis becomes suspect. Does this mean that SG is automatically vindicated of colluding with the enemy? Of course not. Does it mean we should keep an eye on such future activities? Absolutely. This was not the stand taken by KV so one can only assume that he was being far from objective while also creating the impression that there was no danger. 

Insulting RM 

“with due respects let me say that it is a travesty to even equate Ganesh and RM by stating that they represent two sides of SME. That is like saying a Nobel Prize winning physicist and a Powerpoint slide maker from a PR firm represent two sides of SME”

It’s well appreciated that there will be differences of opinion in any situation and actually, it’s the differences in approach that bring richness to a debate and help all of us understand the situation better. But when there is such open unbridled animosity, you don’t help anyone.

It’s impossible to deny the impact RM has had on the general public, coaching them on our civilizational threats, encouraging people to talk back, as well as in increasing their interest in our sanskriti and in Sanskrit studies. At the end of the day, that’s what a movement is about. It is these “illiterate people” who will be left to carry the torch of Hinduism and it is we who must be prepared. We must recognize that each contribution is precious.

In RM’s case, we should think about this: why would a man give up all the pleasures of life, in complete disregard of his own health and life situation, plunge into this trauma of being the lone person facing day in and day out rooms full of adversaries? More people are realizing the danger and joining in now, but he has been and still continues to defend dharma alone in many hostile situations. People can’t and shouldn’t be painted black or white. If there are issues with his approach, we should be able to discuss like mature adults without resorting to a public brawl that disrupts the entire movement thus defeating our purpose. 

Covering Up SG’s Mistakes 

KV says, “Ganesh is very familiar with the works of Pollock and understands the global context very well.” Can we honestly say that if SG knew how dangerous Pollock is, he would have been sitting quietly? Can anybody sit quietly when he sees another systematically and very strategically destroying the very roots of the thing he studies with such passion? So no, in all probability, SG didn’t know about it. He’s probably not to blame for it because he doesn’t live there and is not exposed to the situation directly. But if he knew, it would amount to gross negligence on his part. Then why is KV claiming that SG knew? 

Elsewhere, KV says, “I only see honest critique not condescension in Ganesh's critique”. Then how would he account for SG’s assertion that RM suggested appropriating works into Sanskrit? He picks up a section on spoken Sanskrit and makes this allegation. Any spoken language imbibes words from outside and also creates words of its own. It’s a characteristic of spoken language. SG should point out the exact page and sentence where RM mentioned that we should “appropriate works”. Otherwise we can’t call it honesty. As for the condescension, it was apparent throughout, even illiterate and semi-literate people could figure it out.

Still, we can and should be charitable about it. SG was working with a group of others and one of them may have slipped in that word and it escaped his attention. He doesn’t need to publicly apologize or anything. That is just an ego-booster and makes us a laughing stock in front of Pollock and company. But what is really hard to understand is why we can’t provide a united front to the people attacking us despite our internal differences.

Conclusion 

I also looked at KV’s article called “The Straw Man Fallacy and the Battle for Sanskrit” where he concludes that abandoning RM is the most effective strategy for dealing with Pollock. For all the erudition he claims he has, he implied that traditionalists’ time is better spent critiquing people on their side rather than confronting the people who are trying to destroy them.

The awareness RM has created is growing into quite a movement now and continues to awaken more people every day. It is reasonable to assume that this will generate more students for traditionalists thus taking them out of their “lives of penury” as KV calls it.

So, the field is open. No one is preventing anyone from doing anything. But if someone suggests that we are more effective when we are divided and less organized, if he says there’s something insulting about building a home team, if he condones infighting as the correct strategy to win mega wars when we are anyway so small in numbers, if he deliberately misreads intentions, one can only conclude one thing: Not everyone is action-oriented. Some people theorize, others do the things that get the job done. I will choose the one that gets the job done. Any day. And hopefully, so will many others.

Ganesh on TBFS: A poor model of scholarship

Below is a post by Ragini Sharma which was originally published here.

Dear Kalavai,

This is in response to your April 8, 2016 article on Hindureview.com  in which you “take your gloves off” (FB comment) to forcefully support S. Ganesh’s (SG) critical review of Rajiv Malhotra’s (RM) ground-breaking book, The Battle for Sanskrit (TBFS). But, before I get into the substantive matter, I’d like to observe that I am amazed at what comes across as your double-speak and double-standards, which I can see from your FB posts, you have a blind spot about.  Your article, as does SG’s, heaps numerous ad hominem attacks at RM while complaining that RM is disrespectful to traditional scholars. This negative approach to RM comes in the way of the reader appreciating SG’s and your intended contribution to the discourse about Pollock, which is the topic of TBFS. Regardless, you are a non-entity in this scholarly debate.

In reviewing the Facebook dialogues between you and Aditi Bannerjee and others, I noted that you speak of some deeply held resentments against RM over your past interactions. This leads one to wonder if you have an axe to grind with RM due to the perceived wrong you feel RM has done to you (you do not give details). This bias discredits you as a scholar in your review of RM’s work and allows one to cast aspersions about the motives behind your strong stand against RM. It can be argued that you used SG’s review as an opportunity to attack RM for ulterior motives. This impression is further deepened when you seek RM to apologize to SG, placing SG on a pedestal and relegating RM somewhere very low with respect to their scholarly work. I strongly object to and chide you for your disrespectful behaviour and strongly assert that each scholar has his own sphere of influence and adhikara and both are worthy of full respect in their respective areas. I find it absurd that, given your own biased and unfair approach to RM, you appeal to the readers to express their outrage towards RM for his writing style and approach! Like I said earlier to SG, one needs to walk the talk: if you want others to take the higher road, your own work needs to model that first.

Moving on to the substance of my response, in the section that follows I comment further at the message and content of SG’s review of TBFS and your defence of them.

Let me begin by first recounting that RM’s impetus for writing TBFS was the proposed establishment of the Shankara Chair in Hindu Studies at Columbia University under Sheldon Pollock’s guidance. The purpose of his book is twofold:

1. To explain/expose the complex theories of Sheldon Pollock, an atheist, Marxist philologist who is established as world’s most eminent Sanskrit scholar today. Pollock has a serious influence on the discourse on Sanksrit and Hindu dharma in the academe, media and social-political arena in India. RM critically analyses how Pollock is different from previous Indologists, such as Doniger, Max Muller and so on, in the way that he presents his theories and ideas about Sanskrit/Sanskriti and why his control over Sanskrit is a serious concern to Hindus.
2. To spur the development of a “home team” that can further engage “dharmic insiders” to strategically respond to Pollock’s double barrelled strategic attack: “While political philology is used to diagnose, liberation philology is used to liberate the Indian masses from the diseases being carried in their sanskriti for thousands of years” (RM, article 1, response to SG). The “home team” will need to respond by using “sacred philology” to reclaim Sanskrit as a sacred and living, not dead, language that nurtures Sanksriti. 

Having gone over both SG’s and your articles, it is clear that indeed until RM’s current book, no insiders, including the traditional scholars including SG, have written directly on Pollock in the detailed analytical way that RM has. His claim to be the first one to do so is undisputed, despite SG’s or your wailings about the large amount of work done by traditional scholars, including in regional languages in other related areas. Does that mean RM is dissing the work of others? No! He is pointing to the serious gap in purve-paksh in their work to date and asking them to take up that challenge. SG’s referral to the previous scholars who have written about threats to Hinduism is acknowledged by RM; that he does not give enough credit to these previous scholars is debatable but not sufficient to discredit RM’s current work. So again, the question is: Among the lengthy list of authors that SG provides, has even one of them written on Pollock despite his work being out there since 1980s? The answer is: None!

Instead of giving credit upfront to RM for his original important work in TBFS, SG begins his review with great condescension: he uses the first one and half pages to give a lecture from the Holy Gita about “Not acting in haste, but with viveka”. He sanctimoniously declares, “In the battle for Sanskrit, RM is like an enthusiastic commander of a committed army whose strengths and weaknesses he himself is sadly unable to reconcile”. He then goes on to claim that RM’s book has a lot of ‘useless words’ and he lacks “historical perspective” and knowledge of dharmic “underlying philosophy”. Such criticism is ludicrous given that RM four previous books provide deep insights into these topics. Did SG need to create this drama? Where is SG’s own viveka and vairagya and all the scholarly ethics he lectures others to follow? As Krishna Chivukula has noted, SG’s review “sadly reflects a dominant tamasik aspect of the current state of academic scholarship in India” (https://kkc1857.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/on-shatavadhani-ganeshs-tirade-against-rms-battle-for-sanskrit/).

SG’s begrudging acknowledgement of RM’s ground-breaking work comes in stages beginning with his comment that RM’s “intent is noble”. However, it is couched between platitudes and finger-wagging comments such as RM’s “understanding of the nature of sanatana dharma as a transcendental system is flawed” because it sets up the duality of “Marxism vs Theologist”. One fails to understand the relevance of SG’s reference to Gaudapada’s observation about transcendence and unity of non-duality? What has that to do with RM’s critical analysis of Pollock’s discussion of Ramayana and Sanskrit as tools of oppression of women, Muslims and other minorities based on his application of Marxist, atheist theories of human rights to Hinduism. Is SG suggesting that Pollock’s ideology fits into the transcendence frame of Advaita unity? This suggestion sound like another form of escapism to allow traditional scholars to avoid taking action. The rationale is as follows, as RM has explained: no one and nothing is ultimately evil or can harm sanatana dharma – all is One; no point getting embroiled with such ideas, its all illusionary maya anyways. No need to analyse Pollock’s work or do anything. Instead, SG suggests that its his kind of “non-qualified universal experiential wisdom” that will “counter the enemies” of dharma such as Pollock. Anyone know why that approach has not worked to date? Why do we have an atheist Marxist outsider as the leading world adhikari for Hindu Shastras? SG takes great pains to paint RM as ignorant of Sanskrit terms – I guess it makes him feel superior! Pathetic, indeed.

SG’s complaint against TBFS appears to be threefold: first, that it disrespects traditional scholars; second, that his knowledge of Sanskrit and shastras is deficient and third, that RM does not provide a pramana. I will respond to each one of these charges in detail below.

Regarding SG’s question as to why purve paksh of Pollock is critical at this historical moment, SG appears to not understand the main point of RM’s book. SG laments about RM’s “obsession with western academia, to the extent that the reader gets the impression that Hinduism will not survive unless western academia views it in a better light”. This is the question that RM’s TBFS is all about and the reason why RM’s has strongly criticised the failure of traditional scholars for their lack of interest on this subject of purva paksh. To respond, here are some questions RM raises. What weakness among insider scholars and Indian systems has led to an “outsider” claiming the seat of ‘head Pundit’ in Sanskrit studies in India and the world? What internationally acclaimed academic works are the great traditional scholars doing on purva paksh of western Indology? Why is there not a single school of Indology in India, or internationally respected journal or scholarship by insiders? Why are chairs of the cherished gurus of Hindu dharma being proposed to be set up in western universities under Pollock instead of in India? Why are millions of dollars going to Pollock, for example for the Murthy Classics library and not to traditional scholars or Indian scholars to translate Sanskrit texts? These alarm bells ring not because Pollock is an “outsider” being given authority to explain the meaning of the Hindu shastras but because this high pundit’s work undermines Sanskrit as a living language (read: Death of Sanskrit) and denies the sacredness of the Sanskrit dharmic texts (read: Ram). Yes, as GS says, its not about “playing a blame game”, its about what RM says: Insiders taking up the responsibility to take action to meet this challenge. Why does SG take the critique of traditional scholars personally? Perhaps, it has hit a nerve of guilt for what he could have done? That would be his cross to bear.

The fact is that the traditional scholars have failed to do purva-puksh is well established. The call from many leading Sanskrit scholars is that the now “besieged” traditional scholars (Elst) need to get out of the comfort zone of their silos to confront this reality (S. R. Bhatt). Fifteen eminent scholars, many of the heads of Dept. of Sanskrit Studies, whose reviews are present in the beginning of TBFS, acknowledge that traditional “are either blissfully unaware of these subversive projects or are living in isolation and are afraid of debating them” (Dayanand Bhargava). SG’s “poor me” response is that RM “lacks empathy for the numerous scholars who are deeply involved in their own research”. This is a feeble and uninspiring response to the serious challenge that dharma faces in loosing adhikara over the discourse on Sanskrit and Sanskriti to the likes of Pollock and Doniger.

And, one might add, on what basis can SG claim to be the self-appointed spokesman for all traditional scholars? What about the eminent traditional scholars who have acknowledged this weakness of the traditional scholars? Is SG also claiming to trump their views by regarding himself as the monopoly view of traditional scholars?

Further, SG’s dismissal of the urgency of the issues RM raises is exactly symptomatic of what RM analyses is the disease that ails insiders: escapism (TBFS, p. 370). SG presents these escapism themes in his review of TBFS: we have faced this battle for so long and have won, nothing can harm Hinduism. SG’s even admonishes RM to meditate and let things go – suggesting his is getting all tied up in knots for nothing and that how that will come in the way of his sadhana. SG admonishes “if we allow ourselves to be too troubled by such scholars and such debates, we will never be able to attain the peace of a contemplative mind.” Another route to escapism!

SG’s approach can be confusing to those insiders who wish to inject the Kshatriya aspect in to intellectual response to threats to Hindu dharma – SG appears to throw cold water on their enthusiasm to take action rather that go on with business as usual.

Compare that to the response of RM to the threat posed by the establishment of the Shankara’s chair to Columbia: he flew to Shringeri to explain to him the importance of maintaining the insiders’ authority on the legacy of Shankara and urge the Shankarachara there to reconsider this move and then burned the midnight oil for a year to put out TBFS. Yes, that fight appears to be one battle for Sanskrit won by RM’s tapasya!  If RM would have taken the approach suggested by SG, ‘not to be hasty’, etc, it may have been too late to stop the Shankara’s Chair at Columbia, and for that matter the many other chairs that are still planned in the US. It is actually significant that SG does not appreciate the importance and urgency of responding to the threats of Sanskrit outsiders’ attempt to claim authority to speak for the tradition. Compare that to the response of the Kumbh Mela Akhara’s who upon reading the Hindu translation (done by some smart, fast-action oriented RM volunteers) immediately issues a letter of support to RM for informing them of threat and planning to respond to them accordingly. RM refers to Satyajit Ray’s film Shatrang ke Khelari to explain the SG attitudes of escapism – get busy playing a game of “petty and pedantic arguments” while dharma’s treasures are lost, stolen or broken.

Much of SG’s criticism of RM’s work is centered on complaining that RM has not understood Hinduism well and nit-picking on his use of Sanskrit terms. To analyse this further, I refer to an article by SG on the dharmic tradition of discourse (http://indiafacts.org/the-hindu-view-on-freedom-of-expression-and-public-discourse):

A useful framework to have while embarking on a discussion is found in the anubandha catuṣṭaya, ‘the four bindings’ that Sadānanda Yogendra Sarasvati puts forth (Vedāntasāra 1.5) for the study of vedānta, which can be easily applied to discussions in general:

adhikāri – one who is qualified to study or speak about a subject

viṣaya – the subject matter; the scope of the discussion

saṃbandha – the connection of the adhikāri to the viṣaya

prayojana –the purpose of the discussion

Some of the biggest gaffes in today’s debates are because one or more of these four criteria aren’t taken into consideration by the debaters.

Indeed, SG’s complaint against RM regarding his knowledge of Sanskrit terms is a big gaffe on SG’s part: RM has clearly said that, regarding the book BFS, his purpose is to provide purva paksh of Pollock’s work, which due to its dense and complex language, is difficult for non-academics and non-English speakers to understand. His subject matter or scope is on Pollock and the sambandha is that he has spent 25 years studying and understanding western academe and their work on India, which makes him an adhikari in the subject area. The purpose of his book, as mentioned earlier, is to wake up Indians, including the traditional scholars, to the social, political and religious threat posed to Sanskrit/Sansksriti by the control of the dominant discourse on Hinduism by likes of Pollock et al. (TBFS p. 21). RM calls the book his “humble attempt as a starting point only. There are many shortcomings in my purva paksh and uttar paksh from my own limitations” and given the limitation of time (p. 49) and that it will be up to others, including the traditional scholars, to build on it.

SG, on the other hand, clearly, is not an adhikari in the area of purva paksh of western Indology. His adhikara is in the area of traditional knowledge – as an eminent Shatavadhani. So, where is the conflict or competition? Why the attempt to pull RM down from the important work he is doing to bring these matters to the attention of insiders? It is undisputed that no one prior to TBFS had done a similar analysis of Pollock’s work. The same malicious attempt was made on RM some years ago when the book, Invading the Sacred, came out which exposed Wendy Doniger’s work of denigrating Hindu deities, gurus and symbols. TBFS shows that while Doniger’s work was overtly denigrating Hindu civilization, Pollock’s work is more covert and insidious – more like the Shakespearean “snake underneath the flower”. For example, Pollock speaks about the beauty of the Sanskrit language, but at the same time prefers to study it as “dead” language, devoid of its sacred connections. In fact, Pollock describes the the sacredness itself as the “serpent underneath the flower” – a guise to entrap Hindus while aiming to suppress the human rights of women, Muslim and other minorities.

I am incredulous that SG is unable to get the point that RM makes about Pollock’s ‘serpent underneath the flower” approach of praising Sanskrit, while covertly twisting the meaning of its texts using Marxist and Euro-Christian lens of human rights. As RM exposes, these filters historically were used in Europe to separate the role of Church and state due to the Church’s hegemonic hold over the politics of the time and its inability to support science. Marxism was a virulent response to Christianity’s long history of oppression of women and minorities, all over the world in pre-modern times. Pollock projects these rationales, that were used against Christianity, onto the Ramayana in unique ways. RM provides an exceptional analysis of his work to show why Pollock is different in his approach: he appears to be someone who loves and respects Sanskrit, but with a hidden “poison pill” inside. So, while appearing to be ‘love Sanskrit’, Pollock’s work proposes the cultural genocide of Hindu Sanskriti it inspires. Despite a lengthy explanation of Pollock’s ideology in the TBFS, SG questions why RM has arbitrarily divided Sanskrit into ‘sacred’ and ‘beautiful’. SG denouces such distinctions, saying they are “rather shallow and even impertinent”. Well, it appears that SG did not read the relevant section (p. 210-17) in the TBFS. RM did not invent that distinction, Pollock did. SG did not appear to have read the section on Pollock’s theory of “aestheticization of power” and its application to the Ramayana.

SG asserts that RM’s work is a failure because he has not established the “pramanas (methods and means by which knowledge is obtained)” prior to doing purva paksh is one of the most perplexing parts of SG’s review.  It is at this point that he finally at the end of two pages, he gives credit to RM: “for attempting a puvapaksha. And this is why TBFS is a valuable work. SG then sets up a loose-loose situation for RM: SG insists that proper purva paksh requires opposing sides to agree to the pramanas that are to be used. However, he acknowledges that western scholars are not familiar with the dharmic approach which allows ‘differences to be reconciled and transcended’ as indicated by diversity of dharmic traditions. While one could reasonably expect that Pollock is fully aware of these dharmic traditions of debate, the question is this. How does RM engage Pollock in a dharmic style debate when the man refused to do engage with him at any level, despite being personally asked by RM to do so? Who can compel Pollock to agree to dharmic style of debate? Pollock’s theories are western based and he is not looking to work towards ‘transcendence or unity’ of the kind GS has in mind. While Pollock’s ideology can be seen as a darshana – RM refers to it at Charvak 2.0 – its not something RM would support. If GS is suggesting to bring Charvak 2.0 into the Hindu dharmic fold, it seems ludicrous. Perhaps its for this reason that GS then moves on in this discussion to give credit to RM: “That said, Malhotra’s analysis of European Orientalism…and ‘American Orientalism’ is reasonably accurate”. It is not much later, that SG acknowledges that “The assiduous efforts of Malhotra in writing TBFS bears fruit…- a meticulous analysis of the works of Sheldon Pollock.”

SG goes on to complain that RM has repeated himself in his discussion on Pollock’s political ideology and “could have saved many pages” if he had not done so. Here, SG has failed to understand how RM has laid out the book. In the introduction RM clearly states that the book is set up in way that each chapter stands on its own and he suggests readers read the first and concluding chapter first and then go to any other chapter that interest them to delve deeper. This has required him to repeat key ideas in each of the chapters.  SG also complains that it is not “practical” RM suggests a revival of Sanskrit to produce new knowledge in Sanskrit. Why not? If sufficient scholars begin to speak fluently in Sanskrit, as a spoken language, would it not be natural for them to create new smritis? They could be songs, plays or stories in Sanksrit language about traditional culture or modern culture.  Its one of Pollock’s assertion that Sanskrit is a “dead” language and is not capable of producing creative works (see chapter 9 of TBFS).

In the conclusion part, SG continues with his lecture on Sanskrit and Sanskriti terms and ideas. I have called it self-serving because it does not add to the discussion on Pollock that RM’s book is about but rather shows SG’s expertise in the area, which is well recognized by RM already. RM has without hesitation invited SG, and all others, to join together to respond with strength to the Pollockization of Indian history, language and culture, most powerfully through media and academia.

Regarding the many criticisms of RM’s use of key Sanskrit words or dharmic concepts, I suspect RM has not responded to them because many of them represent either missing the point that RM is making or are just plain minor to the battle at hand. For example, SG’s concerns about RM’s use of the term “Sanskrit non-translatable’ is an important topic that RM has devoted a whole chapter to in his book Being Different (p. 220-306). I guess SG did not read it because his comments do not add anything to this topic. As I wrote in my previous response to SG, there are other area where his criticism is mere nitpicking. For example, in the appendix, in the section on “Partially incorrect claims that you point out in RM’s work”, I draw your attention to point #7 on the four levels of speech. SG states that Malhotra’s explanation is incorrect. You state:

They are not four ‘levels’ of speech but rather the four ‘stages.’ From conception to utterance, an idea is said to pass through four stages – paraa (before thought), pashyanti (thought), madhyamaa (on the verge of utterance) and vaikhari (utterance). The ancient seers were able to go from paraa to vaikhari instantly (see Vicaraprapañca of Sediapu Krishna Bhat).

I would like to point out that perhaps SG is incorrect and RM is correct. I say this not because I am a Sanskrit scholar but because of what I have heard my Guru His Holiness Sri Ravi Shankar explain, and I quote as follows.

There are four levels of speech:

1. Vaikhari is the level of speech that we are all using now to communicate.
2. Madhyama is subtler than Vaikhari, where you don’t need language to communicate, but just intentions or feelings help to communicate. It is like you would communicate with people who don’t understand your language or with babies who throw tantrums to tell you that they are hungry or sleepy, or communicate through different signs. Madhyama is subtler than speech, even animals and trees use Madhyama to communicate.
3. Pashyanti is where you simply recognize the knowledge without words or language. It is like deep intuition. Sometimes, when you go deep into meditation, you may hear some chanting or words, or you might get some ideas. When ideas come without language, it is called Pashyanti. A seer would recognize a little bit of that, from somewhere deep. All scientific discoveries happen from the Pashyanti level.

Para, beyond Pashyanti, is the universal language or the source of all expressions. In deep Samadhi or total stillness, you are connected with Para. No verbal communication is needed. Actually, real communication happens from Para, it is just the vibration that communicates. All the other talking that we do, from the Vaikhari level, is only to keep the mind engaged. The mind cannot capture communication from the level of Para, only the soul understands it. Para is the language of the soul. The mind needs some entertainment; the entertainment of the mind is Vaikhari, the language that we speak.

My intension here is to show, as SG has said, there are different interpretations of Sanskrit texts. I do not see the need to make this issue a critique of RM’s book.

In conclusion, I would say that it is unfortunate that SG allowed his ego to come in the way of appreciating the inspiring, important and timely work that TBFS represents. Its unsavoury condescending language is against everything he professes to others. He has set a bad example and the impact of it is evident in Venkat’s support for this poor scholarship. The ball is firmly in the court of SG to clean up his act and take positive action towards what RM has beautifully referred to as our collective yajna to protect and serve our dharma. Om Shanti.