Showing posts with label RISA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RISA. Show all posts

RISA's Token Hindus

This thread encapsulates the continuous attempts made by a section of the Western Academia to interpret, appropriate in ways that are convenient to them, ideas and developments that happen in the Hindu fold. They typically employ a reductive Western lens to analyze and 'deconstruct' events happening in the Dharmic world. Furthermore, they also act as gatekeepers, by not letting in the voices of practicing Hindus, and more importantly, any dissenting Dharmic. For example, the so-called 'RISA list' is barred to any practicing Dharmic who disagrees with this fabricated consensus, as Rajiv Malhotra does. Hence a person practicing dharma and coming from it is deprived of a seat at their own table where ostensibly, the freedom of speech is championed. On the other hand, we observe that token Hindus who are 'useful' for furthering this cause of western universalism are indeed welcomed at the table, and is one of the key talking points of this post.

 A RISA list mail from Fred Smith was shared by Indrani:
Several people have asked me off list to compile the sources reported and to summarize the very preliminary findings from my question last week regarding an apparent convergence between followers of Vivekananda, even Gandhi, and the RSS.  I regarded these three as strangely matched bedfellows and wondered how to interpret it, if indeed my observations are valid at all. What I discovered is that Vivekananda, and even Gandhi, have been gradually appropriated into the culture of the RSS, and that this has been building for many decades. Also, however, mediate forces have emerged to both facilitate and transform this image. I was not aware, for example, that the well-known monument to Vivekananda found at the southern tip of India, at Kanyakumari, was constructed by the RSS in the late 1960s. (I visited it many decades ago and was not at that time aware of the politics involved in its construction.) For this and the activities of the Vivekananda Kendra regarding yoga, see Gwilym Beckerlegge, “Eknath Ranade, Gurus, and Jivanvratis: The Vivekananda Kendra’s Promotion of the “Yoga Way of Life,”in Mark Singleton Ellen Goldberg, Gurus of Modern Yoga, pp. 317-350 (OUP 2013). In addition to the citation in my original posting of the piece by Pralay Kanungo, seee his “Fusing the Ideals of the Math with the Ideology of the Sangh? Vivekananda Kendra, Ecumenical Hinduism, and Hindu Nationalism,” in Public Hinduisms, ed.  John Zavos, et al. pp. 119-140 (Sage, 2012). This excellent volume is worth our attention.

I am also struck by the way new but mediate ideologies are influencing the body politic and sectarian affiliations. An example is the influence of Lingayat gurus in Karnataka who seem to draw from both sides, from their own space in the middle, as well as from local political arrangements. For this, see Aya Ikegame, “The governing guru: Hindu mathas in liberalizing India,” in Jacob copeman and Aya Ikegame, The Guru in South Asia: New Interdisciplinary Perspectives, pp. 46-63 (Routledge 2012). Her work is well worth following. I suspect that local configurations and affiliations are present in many states in India that most of us are unaware of.

John Cort reminded us of the posters and hoardings of a muscular macho Vivekananda in Gujarat as recently as this year, used as props by the BJP. Consistent with this, Adam Bowled noted, is a report in the Hindustan Times “that the BJP government in Haryana has appointed Dinanath Batra to guide a committee of educationists in Haryana. The accompanying photo shows Dinanath Batra in an (his?) office with a statue of Vivekananda in the foreground.” http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rss-ideologue-dinanath-batra-to-guide-haryana-on-education/article1-1285430.aspx
Robert Zydenbos suggested we look at “an in-depth chapter on Vivekananda” in Hans-Joachim Klimkeit's _Der politische Hinduismus_ (Harrassowitz, 1981), which, Robert says, “is still the standard work in German on the subject.” Robert also suggests that Vivekananda’s appearance at the Chicago Parliament of Religions in 1893 has been overplayed by Hindu nationalists, at least from the European perspective. OK, go ahead, blame America :-)
I agree with Pankaj Jain and everyone else that it’s not a good idea for scholars to reduce Gandhi or Vivekananda to any political agenda. Jeff Long emphasizes this point: “We need to be careful to distinguish between these uses and the self-understandings of these figures in their respective contexts.” Nevertheless, such noble aspirations have not prevented these appropriations from becoming a regular feature of political practice in India. I agree that the search for a new indigenous hermeneutic and epistemology is a worthy endeavor, but the primary thrust of the efforts I have encountered are preoccupied with rejectionist discourse coupled with the use of highly selective evidence with which to build their theories, compounded with insufficient deep knowledge of both texts and the history of intellectual debate in India (for the latter, see the vigorous and readable work of Larry McCrea).
Several people on and off-list brought to my attention Jyotimaya Sharma’s recent book A Restatement of Religion: Swami Vivekananda and the Making of Hindu Nationalism (Yale University Press, 2013). but James Madaio does not believe that Sharma has adequately addressed how the right has “diachronically appropriated figures like Vivekananda into their rhetoric and 'mediascapes',” even as he demythologizes Vivekananda and neo-Vedantic inclusivism. Madaio notes, perceptively: “It does not seem a coincidence that the (often impassioned) issue of who Vivekananda was is anachronistically caught up in the right's (selective) appropriation of him and, in turn, the left's intellectual critique.”
Jon Keune mentioned the common ground between Gandhi and Hindutva. For this, see Arundhati Roy's introduction to the annotated edition of Ambedkar's annihilation of caste:
Amod Lele refers us to his master's thesis on the rise of state-sponsored Hindutva with Singapore's Confucian experiments:https://bu.digication.com/amod_lele/International_development
and his article, "State Hindutva and Singapore Confucianism as responses to the decline of the welfare state,” in Asian Studies Review 28 (2004): 267-82.
Other sources that list members noted were:
Joe Alter’s Gandhi’s Body and his many works on yoga and Indian masculinity;
chapters 3 4 of Peter van der Veer’s Imperial Encounters, in which he discusses Vivekananda’s rejection of muscular Christianity even if muscular Hinduism developed later;
Arafaat Valiani’s work on Gandhi, masculinity, and performative politics in Gujarat, Militant Publics in India: Physical Culture and Violence in the Making of a Modern Polity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011);
Anup Kumar points out that in spite of the high profile of the hard edge of Hindu nationalism, most Hindus still identify with a softer, gentler Hinduism, and that “we are dealing with our own cognitive dissonance in face of the renewed focus on Gandhi by the BJP.” Similarly, Raymond Williams reminds us that in the early decades of Indian immigration to the U.S., Vivekananda was extolled as the Indian spiritual exemplar countering western materialism. How times have changed!!
Finally, and most recently, this from the NYTimes a few days ago:

 Rajiv's reply to this was thus:
  • Fred Smith is well known in Hinduism studies, and I have had many dealings with him and his students/cabal over 2 decades. I will give some background so readers have a context for what he says above. (This perspective I can offer is an example of "getting out of my comfort zone" numerous times.)
  • His position above is what Indra's Net criticizes as the Neo-Hinduism theory of Hinduism - i.e. looking for evidence to depict modern Hinduism as a political fabrication by Vivekananda, Gandhi, etc. to unite Indians against Brits, which later fell into the hands of the Hindutva to use against Muslims minorities.
  • If he were a good scholar, he would refer to my book and its counter arguments, and address my issues directly. But he cannot face that, so he simply ignores IN. He mentions various experts who I have already dealt with and criticized. So he gives a one sided view.
  • Robert Zydenbos, Gwilym Beckerlegge, Mark Singleton, Ellen Goldberg, Amod Lele - these persons he cites are especially nasty anti-Hindu persons I have dealt with before.
  • Pankaj Jain (named by him) was my follower/supporter for years; told me he got inspired by my work to leave IT and enter a career in Hinduism studies; got my help to enter Columhia U's MA program; got much mentoring my to understand the issues. But once he went for his PhD to Univ. of Iowa, where Fred Smith rules, he flipped sides completely - I was to be avoided in order to suck up to Smith cohorts. Upon entering the job market as a junior prof, he realized he was a nobody; so he started lobbying with the Hindu diaspora for support to boost his career. Many knew him from the earlier days, and stayed away, seeing him  as untrustworthy. But several went around campaigning for him seeing him as a goody-goody face to help us. Eventually most of these supporters also left him, and now he is sitting in a corner of the kurukshetra with nothing important to say. Neither here nor there - inconsequential.
  • Pankaj and Jeff Long are cited by Smith to make it seem he has also mentioned the "Hindu side" and hence he is balanced. But neither is strong enough or creative enough, so they are "useful" to serve in this role.
  • On Jeff Long, I refer you to three urls where we had prior discussions on him, right here:
  • Another product of U of Iowa Fred Smith was Makarand Paranjape, a prof of English at JNU who likes to presents a pro-Hindu tilt. He has had to dance between working w me and appeasing his academic sponsor Fred Smith. He has agonized over this, at times telling me that his open association with me has cost his standing with them, and they stopped inviting him every summer to give lectures in USA like they used to. That's what this "intellectual freedom" amounts to. In any case, Makarand has been largely on the sidelines of important debates for the past decade, and writes relatively non-controversial stuff. This despite the fact that his mentor at JNU was Kapil Kapoor, a no-nonsense, fiery speaker solidly on our side.
  • Fred Smith has crisscrossed both sides of Hinduism, presenting himself as insider or outsider depending on what best suits his interest in a given situation. He is now translating the last 5 vols of Mahabharata for the Univ of Chicago - this is planned to become the international standard on Mahabharata. (Its initial volumes defined the lens: [kshatriya] was translated as "feudal lord" and shudra as "slave". The editor James L. Fitzgerald said the text should be seen as "God's genocide". You get the picture. )
To join the discussion, please sign up on the yahoogroups site and follow the thread here.

 Now on the subject of Swami Vivekananda who is the subject of much study as shown above, here's a paper by Rajiv Malhotra which was published in the official RK Mission book commemorating his 150th anniversary and released by the President of India.
There are multiple posts in the Rajiv Malhotra yahoogroups forum where practicing Hindus share relevant  and useful points of view on Swami Vivekananda's message from a dharmic perspective.

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Balagangadhara on the biblical underpinnings of 'secular' social sciences - chapter 12

Go to Chapter 11

Pdf of the book is available for free download here.

Soon after RISA Lila-1 appeared, Prof. Balagangadhara, from the Department of the Comparative Science of Cultures in Ghent University, Belgium, posted extensive comments on the Sulekha website. Thus began his prominent role as a key scholar in this debate ever since. Below are excerpts from his remarks made in three parts spread over a few days.

To Rajiv Malhotra and all other seekers, by S.N. Balagangadhara

Deservedly, Rajiv’s article has appalled the readers: horror, indignation, anger and bewilderment at the RISA ‘lila’ . . . I want to raise three issues: (a) how to analyze what Rajiv portrays; (b) depending on that, what an adequate response consists of. Before we do either (this is one
of the things I have discovered through my own research during the last two decades), we need to be clear about (c) how we ‘should not’ analyze the situation that Rajiv has sketched. Given that all three (in their general form) have been my obsessions, I have been reflecting on them deeply, seriously and systematically for some time now. I would like to share some of the results of this reflection with you.

Perhaps, it is best to begin in an autobiographical mode. I came to (continental) Europe some 25 years ago, naively thinking that ‘cultural difference’ is something that ‘cosmopolitan’ Indians would not experience: after all, I had studied Natural Sciences in India; knew English rather well; was more familiar with the British and European history than I was with that of India; felt right at home with the Western philosophy … It took me about four years of living in Europe, without relating to any Indian (or even Asian) community because I did not want to land up in an emotional and social ghetto, to realize that I was wrong: ‘cultural differences’ were no fictitious invention of anthropologists; it involved more than being a vegetarian or being barefoot at home when the weather was not too cold. This realization was instrumental in shaping my research project: what makes the Indian culture different from that of the West? Of course, the first fields I went into were Indology and Anthropology. Pretty soon I discovered that neither was of any use. Not only did they fail to provide me with any insights, but they also succeeded in merely enraging me: the kind of rage you feel when you read the analyses of Wendy Doniger or Kripal.

Indology is full of ‘insights’ like those you have read in Rajiv’s article. What has varied over time is the intellectual jargon that clothes these ‘analyses’. (For more on this, please read page 124, chapter 12)

My initial reactions to these discoveries [discussed in preceding paragraphs] parallel the response of many a post on this e-board: horror, rage and a conviction that ‘racism’ is inherent in these writings. Pretty soon, this conviction about ‘racism’ of European authors gave way to doubts: Is it possible to convict all European authors of racism? Are we to assume that, in the last 400
years or so, all writers who wrote on India were racists? If yes, how to understand the powerful impact these writers and their theories have had on the Indian authors and Indian social sciences? If no, why did they say pretty similar things? Is one to say that the ‘respected’ Indian social scientists are no better than brown sahibs? Is Indian social science merely a disguised variant of Indology? So on and so forth.

Today, many of us are familiar with Edward Said and his book ‘Orientalism’. In his wake, many buzzwords like ‘essentialism’, ‘Eurocentrism’ (though interesting, Blaut is not theoretically well equipped), ‘Orientalist discourse’, the ‘us-them dichotomy’ etc. whiz around. I would be the last to detract from the merits of Said’s book: he was one of the earliest writers to have drawn attention to the systematic nature of the Western way of talking about the Orient. Despite this, the concept ‘Orientalism’ is totally inadequate to analyze the situation underlying RISA lila. Surely, the question is: ‘Why is the West Orientalist?’ Said’s plea ends up denying any possibility of understanding cultural differences or indeed why Orientalism came into being, or what sustains it. (For more on this, please read page 125, chapter 12)

What I am saying is that one should not think that Rajiv paints a ‘racist’, or ‘orientalist’ or a ‘eurocentric’ picture. These words obfuscate the deeper issue, one which is more insidious than any of the above three. It might or might not be the case that Wendy and her children are ‘racist’; ditto about their ‘eurocentrism’ or ‘orientalism’. But when you realize that they are not saying anything that has not been said in the last three hundred years (despite their fancy jargon), the question becomes: ‘why does the western culture systematically portray India in these terms?’

To say that Western culture is, in toto, racist or ‘eurocentric’ is to say pretty little: even assuming, counterfactually, that the Western culture is all these things (and that all the Westerners are ‘racist’, etc), why do these attitudes persist, reproduce themselves and infect the Indians? There is a weightier reason not to tread this path. In fact, it has been a typical characteristic of Western writings on other cultures (including India) to characterize the latter using terms that are only appropriate to describe individual psychologies: X culture is stupid, degenerate, and irrational; Y culture is childish, immature, intuitive, feminine, etc. To simply repeat these mantras after them is to achieve very little understanding.

Rajiv says repeatedly that these writings ‘deny agency to the Indian subjects’. I am familiar with this phrase through ‘post-colonial’ writings. This too is a mantra like many of them, without having the desired effect. And why is that? It might appear to make sense if we merely restrict ourselves to Wendy and her Children’s analyses of Ganesha, Shiva or Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. However, it loses all plausibility when we realize that, for instance, social sciences use one and the same ‘epistemology’ to analyze both the West and India and that despite this, their claims about India reproduce the ‘Indological truths.’ (For more on this, please read page 126, chapter 12)

In a way, you could say, we need to do to the West what it has done to us, namely, study it
anthropologically. But how to go about doing this and not simply reproduce what generations of thinkers (from the West) have already said about the West?

It is amusing to use Freud to analyze their Freudian analyses of Indian religions; or use Patanjali’s Chakras to typify their personalities. But at the end of the day, we are still left with the task of studying and understanding why the Western culture talks about us the way it does. Let me just say this: our problems do not either begin or end in religious studies or Indology. They are deeper. Much, much deeper. To tackle RISA lila as a separate phenomenon, i.e., to focus either on Wendy or her ‘parampara’ alone, would be to compound tragedy with conceptual blunder. Not only that. It would prevent us from understanding RISA lila for what it is: a phenomenon that is typical of the Western culture.

In the [above] . . . I drew attention to the fact that Wendy and her Children draw from the existing social sciences, while contributing at the same time to their further ‘development’. In this post, I will elaborate what this statement means, what it implies, and what it says about the ‘Western culture’

1. Not many would challenge the claim that Christianity has been highly influential in the development of the Western culture. We need to take this statement utterly seriously. It means that many things we ‘take for granted’, whether in the West or in India, come from the influence that Christianity has exerted. I claim that Christianity expands in two ways. (This is not just typical of Christianity but of all religions. I will talk only of Christianity because I want to talk about the Western culture.) Both of these have been present ever since the inception of Christianity and have mutually reinforced each other. The first is familiar to all of us: ‘direct conversion.’ People from other cultures and ‘religions’ are explicitly converted to Christianity and thus the community of Christian believers grows.

2. Funnily enough, the second way in which Christianity expands is also familiar to us: the process of secularization. I claim that Christianity ‘secularizes’ itself in the form of, as it were, ‘de-de-Christianized Christianity’. What this word means is: typically Christian doctrines spread wide and deep (beyond the confines of the community of Christian believers) in the society dressed up in ‘secular’ (that is, not in recognizably ‘Christian’) clothes. We need a very small bit of Western history here in order to understand this point better.

Usually, the ‘enlightenment period’, which is identified as ‘the Age of Reason’, is alleged to be the apotheosis (or the ‘high point’) of the process of ‘secularization’: the enlightenment thinkers are supposed to have successfully ‘fought’ against the dominance that religion (i.e. Christianity) had until then exercised over social, political, and economic life. From then on, so goes the standard textbook story, human kind began to look to ‘reason’ instead of, say, the Church in all matters social, civic, political etc. The spirit of scientific thinking, which dominated that age, has continued to gain ascendancy. As heirs to this period, which put a definitive end to all forms of ‘irrational’ subservience, we are proud citizens of the modern day world. We are against all forms of despotism and we are believers in democracy; we believe in the role of reason in social life; we recognize the value of human rights; and we should understand that ‘religion’ is not a matter for state intervention, but a ‘private’ and personal affair of the individual in question. This, as I say, is the standard textbook story.

4. The problem with this story is simply this: the enlightenment thinkers have built their formidable reputation (as opponents of ‘all organized religion’ or even ‘religion’ tout court) by ‘selling’ ideas from Protestant Christianity as though they were ‘neutral’ and ‘rational’. Take for example the claim that ‘religion’ is not a matter for state intervention and that it is a ‘private’ affair of the individual in question. (Indian ‘secularists’ agitatedly jump up and down to ‘defend’ this idea.) Who thought, do you think, that ‘religion’ was not a ‘private’ affair? The Catholic Church, of course. The Protestants [on the other hand] fought a battle with the Catholics on ‘theological’ grounds: they argued that ‘being a Christian believer’ (or what the Christian believes in) is matter between the Maker (i.e. God) and the Individual. It was ‘God’ (i.e. the Christian God), who judged man; and men ‘could not’ judge each other in matters of Christian faith. The Church, they argued, could not mediate between Man and God (according to their interpretation of the Bible); (For more on this, please read page 129, chapter 12)

5. The same story applies with respect to what is enshrined in the UN charter. The doctrine of Human Rights (as we know them today) arose in the Middle Ages, when the Franciscans and the Dominicans fought each other. (Both are religious orders within the Catholic Church.) All theories of human rights we know today were elaborated in this struggle that continued nearly for two hundred years. These were ‘theological’ debates, to understand which one
needs to understand Christian theology.

6. I am not merely making the point that these ideas had their origin in religious contexts. My point is much more than that: I claim that ‘we cannot accept these theories without, at the same time, accepting Christian theology as true.’ What the Western thinkers have done over the centuries (the Enlightenment period is the best known for being the ‘high point’ of this process) is to ‘dress up’ Christian theological ideas (I am blurring the distinction between the divisions within Christianity) in a secular mantle. Not just this or that isolated idea, but theological theories themselves.

7. I am not in the least suggesting that this is some kind of a ‘conspiracy’. I am merely explicating what I mean when I say that Christianity spreads also through the process of ‘secularization’. What has been secularized are whole sets of ideas about Man and Society which I call ‘Biblical themes’. They are Biblical themes because to accept them is to accept the truth of the Bible. Most of our so-called ‘social sciences’ assume the truth of these Biblical themes.

8. I know this sounds unbelievable; but I have started to prove them. I have already shown, for example, that the so-called religious studies presuppose the truth of Christian theology. That is why, when they study the so-called ‘religions’ from other cultures, their results do not fundamentally differ from a theological treatment of the same religions. (For more on this, please read page 130, chapter 12)

9. To begin appreciating the plausibility (if not the truth) of my claim, ask yourselves the following question: why are the so-called ‘social sciences’ different from the natural sciences? I mean to say, why have the social sciences not developed the way natural sciences have? Comparatively speaking, it is not as though the social sciences are starved of funding or personnel. Despite all this, the social sciences are not progressing. Why is this? I put to you that this is what has happened. Most of our so-called social sciences are not ‘sciences’ in any sense of the term: they are merely bad Christian theologies.

10. If this is true, it also helps us understand why both ‘conversion’ and the notion of ‘secularism’ jars Indian sensibilities. Somehow or the other, Nehruvian ‘secularism’ always connotes a denigration of Indian traditions; if you look at the debates in the EPW and SEMINAR and journals like that, one thing is very clear: none of the participants really understands what ‘secularism’ means. In India, ‘secularism’ is counter posed to ‘communalism’ whereas ‘the
secular’, in European languages, has only one contrast—‘the sacred’.

11. To summarize what I have said so far. Christianity spreads in two ways: through conversion and through secularization. The modern day social sciences embody the assumptions of Christian theology, albeit in a ‘secularized’ form. That is why when Wendy and her Children draw upon the resources of the existing social sciences, they are drawing upon Christian theology. In this Christian theology, we are worshippers of the Devil. Our gods are demons (followers of the devil). As such, amongst other things, they are perverts: sexually, morally and intellectually.

This is the insidious process I talked about: the process of secularization of Christian ideas. Let the ‘simplistic’ presentation not lead you to think that the ideas I am proposing are ‘simplistic’. They are not.

Read entire chapter 12 from page 123 to 131

Pdf of the book is available for free download here.


Go to chapter 13
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An overview of the voices which rose in criticism of such writings on Hinduism - chapter 11

Go to Chapter 10

Pdf of the book is available for free download here.

Every inbred organization defends its integrity by citing its so-called ‘independent’ reviews. But the standard definition of ‘independent’, as used in business and law, would fail to qualify RISA scholars as being truly independent. Criticism that is controlled and licensed by those who are to be criticized is not entirely legitimate. The denial of agency to Indians who are outside the academy’s controls and supervision continues to provide cover to hide questionable practices. Truly independent critics such as those featured in this section become targets of the establishment’s wrath. When all other arguments fail to silence these critics, they are attacked personally as being ‘anti-social’ elements—as we shall see later. This is an entirely arbitrary judgment, without any independent critical analysis or direct representation by those being so condemned.

Scholars should criticize but not define another’s religion.

The article, RISA Lila-1, generated an avalanche of critiques of RISA by non-mainstream scholars. This in turn triggered a backlash from several RISA-associated academicians. Many of these scholars refused to allow agency to the living, breathing other, who is today also their American neighbor. Perhaps the fight for ‘agency’ is on behalf of those who are absent, belonging to bygone eras or living in rural India, and unable to talk back. The participation of the living diaspora, whose culture is being represented, has often been seen as an annoyance.

When asked whether his somewhat negative tone could turn off scholars who might otherwise be receptive, Malhotra replied, “The British didn’t like Gandhi’s aesthetics, either.” He felt his style had to be commensurate with what it took to get the desired impact, and that it should be compared with the scholars’ own styles which are amply on display—against the critics in the Indian diaspora, against the Hindu deities, against the gurus, and so forth. Later, you will see graphic examples of the RISA scholars’ verbal abuses of one another and of Indian ‘others’.) Many felt that the scholars do not come with ‘clean hands’ as their own discourse is full of ad hominem attacks.

One of the scholars moved to respond after reading Risa Lila-1 was Prof. S.N. Balagangadhara of University of Ghent, Belgium. Balu (as he is popularly called) is the author of The Heathen in His Blindness, an acclaimed book on the flaws in looking at Indian traditions through the prisms defined by Western scholars based on Abrahamic religions. Balu became actively engaged in arguing against the Doniger School on Sulekha, and has since then deepened his involvement through other forums.

He first posted extensive comments in three parts to the Sulekha discussion thread, and these parts are excerpted and presented as chapter 12. (Later, he wrote a further article on Sulekha in which he used Kripal as interlocutor but the points he makes are of general importance to understand how the West studies India. This appears as Appendix-2.)

Chapter 13, titled, ‘The Children of Colonial Psychoanalysis’ is a summary [drawn up by Yvette Rosser], of an important paper by Christiane Hartnack. It shows how the colonizers used psychoanalysis as a tool to profile Indians, especially Hindus, in a manner that fit the colonial agendas. The similarities between the colonial writings and Doniger’s School today are striking.

The article in chapter 14, ‘Is the Fight Between Siva and Ganesha an Episode of Oedipal Conflict?’ by Yuvraj Krishan, a prolific Indologist from within the tradition, is focused on showing that core Freudian assumptions simply do not apply to Ganesha and Shiva and that Western scholars have stretched the facts to fit their thesis. He references original texts of the tradition to argue his case.

Chapter 15, ‘Kripal on the Couch in Calcutta’ is a summary of an article by Prof. Somnath Bhattacharyya (‘Kali’s Child: Psychological And Hermeneutical Problems’). It exposes the flawed application of Freudian analyses by Doniger’s School. Bhattacharyya is a professor of psychology in Calcutta (emeritus) as well as a practising psychologist and well read in the original Bengali texts central to the Kripal scandal.

Sankrant Sanu, an independent scholar who was a Microsoft Manager analyzed the material on Hinduism written by Wendy Doniger for Microsoft Encarta encyclopedia and wrote a critique of the numerous biases it contained. This became yet another popular Sulekha article and is reprinted as chapter 16. Doniger has said publicly several times that the Encarta article was removed because her name was not ‘Sharma’ [since the section was re-written by Prof. Arvind Sharma from McGill University]—implying a racial bias, rather than her work being unable to withstand Sanu’s criticism or her inability to respond to its substance.

Chapter 17 is a reprint of a very detailed point-by-point evaluation of Paul Courtright’s book on Ganesha by two dedicated scholars from outside the academia, Vishal Agarwal and Kalavai Venkat. It raises serious questions about the rigorousness of peer-review that occurs within the academia. It also raises very troubling questions about the quality and integrity of Courtright’s scholarship, not just about Hinduphobic cultural bias—questions that have so far been ignored both by Courtright and his peers, primarily by claiming victim status for the scholar. Doniger has also condemned criticisms of Courtright, claiming these are attempts by ‘extremists’ to control the study of Hinduism.

A few others have been selected for inclusion in the Appendices. Dr. Alan Roland is a well-known psychologist who has specialized in clinical work with Indians living in the United States for a few decades and has authored scholarly books based on this work. He criticizes the use of Freudian psychoanalysis in interpreting Indians and Indian cultural symbols, because he is convinced that Freud’s models are not valid for Indians. Appendix-1 is a reprint of Roland’s article, titled, ‘The Uses (and Misuses) Of Psychoanalysis in South Asian Studies: Mysticism and Child Development’.

Appendix-2 ‘India and Her Traditions: A Reply to Jeffrey Kripal’ is an essay by S.N. Balagangadhara. This is based on Balagangadhara’s cogent and direct rejoinder to Jeffrey Kripal.

The final article, titled, ‘The Butterflies Baulked’, is a compilation of reader responses to RISA Lila-1 by Yvette C. Rosser. It gives a sampling of the over one thousand comments and private emails from supportive voices across cyberspace. These are a good barometer of the quality and quantity of the spontaneous mobilization and intellectual ferment caused by the essay.

Read entire chapter 11 from page 119 to 122

Pdf of the book is available for free download here.


Go to chapter 12
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It's all about power - chapter 10

Go to Chapter 9

Pdf of the book is available for free download here.

Kripal defended his creative bending of the meaning of Bengali texts by quoting from Gadamer’s theories of interpretation. Gadamer’s ‘fusion of horizons’ is a method by which today’s scholar can reinterpret classical texts in ways that were not part of the original author’s intent and meanings. Such new interpretations are deemed legitimate by this theory. They expand the orthodox meanings with new possibilities. The theory says that the contemporary horizon (i.e. Kripal’s attitude) fuses with the past horizon (i.e. the tradition’s view) and produces a third text that ‘goes beyond its author’ and leads to new meanings. This is how Kripal justifies his application of parochial and Eurocentric lenses, to create new meanings.

Malhotra seizes Kripal’s method of analysis and wishes to apply it in the pursuit of constructive and progressive Hindu theology:

Agreeing with his principle, let us ask why, then, are Hindu scholars denigrated when they apply ‘probes or techniques of analysis’, such as the use of astronomical data in classical Indian texts, to bring about ‘fusions of horizons’ and ‘radically new visions’ pertaining to Indic traditions? Are these fresh conclusions ‘a bit shocking to someone locked into only one horizon of meaning’—namely, are RISA cohorts boxed-in mentally? Why don’t they critically examine these new claims, instead of rushing to condemn such scholarship as neo-fascist, fundamentalist, Hindu Nationalist and other assorted abuses, without any basis? Or is it that Gadamer’s theory of new hermeneutics works only in the direction chosen by the dominant culture, imposing itself to overrule the interpretation indigenous to the colonized culture? [Emphasis added]

Taking this point further, why are Hindus’ own new religious reinterpretations not given credence and why are such interpretations dismissed as being inauthentic—often by this very cult of scholars? Do non-white people have the same rights of re-reinterpretation, without supervision by the dominant culture, and not as mere proxies? Furthermore, why am I attacked when I use a method to deconstruct certain RISA members, when they use the very same methods themselves? Could it be that my conclusions are a bit shocking to someone locked into only one horizon of meaning?

Thus, these asymmetries of power can also lead to Western cultural hegemony rather than greater diversity. Ultimately, who, and on what basis, should determine which interpretations are valid and which are not?

It cannot simply be a matter of prior usage or acceptance by the power structure, for that would perpetuate hegemony and go against the very innovation that Kripal espouses. In practice, how does one avoid adhikara (authority) being usurped by a dominant coterie based mainly on power? RISA scholars have evaded debating these methods openly, with their critics. […]”

Multiple Competing Worldviews

In defending himself in Evam, Kripal noted:

I do not honestly believe that the many important differences that have become apparent through this controversy can be fully resolved here or in any other format, as many of us are clearly operating out of radically different worldviews, moral values, and understandings of human sexuality and language.

Kripal here displays a culturally myopic perspective. His principle, stated above, accepts that different views will not get fully reconciled. The problem then is that only a very tiny percentage of the core information and perspectives about Hinduism gets presented in classrooms. Given the limited time available in classrooms, it is impossible to explain Hinduism completely. Hence, critical choices are made about the academic lenses through which Hinduism is presented.

Malhotra raises a serious question:

Which of the divergent views available in the marketplace of ideas ends up dominating in the classrooms? This is where the power of the dominant culture—in controlling the distribution of scholarship, media, and classroom teaching—has resulted in Hinduism being reduced to the lower level in the spectrum of meanings.

As an example of resolving this asymmetric power over distribution, Kripal was given the opportunity to respond to Swami Tyagananda in Evam, a new journal funded by Malhotra’s Infinity Foundation. However, the diaspora did not receive equivalent access to give their views using the channels of knowledge that are controlled by the academy.

[Kripal] categorically refused to allow Swami Tyagananda’s rejoinder to get published on par with his own work, which would have enabled Tyagananda’s work to also get catalogued, indexed and distributed to the same extent as his own. This attitude is driven by 3rd chakra power obsession and is also found in many Christian positions that ‘tolerate’ other religions, but cannot ‘respect’ them, because the latter would be tantamount to legitimizing them. (For more on this, please read page 110 and 111, chapter 10)

The Khyber Pass of the distribution of Hinduism scholarship in academics consists of journals, university presses, appointment committees, curricula development, and conferences. This is carefully controlled by sepoys and chowkidars who work for a small handful of well-entrenched scholar titans.

Because of this hegemonic control over distribution channels, Doniger’s books are amongst the most widely prescribed in the college curricula on Hinduism. She is also the editor of an influential encyclopedia of world religions. And she authored Microsoft’s Encarta Encyclopedia, which after being on the market for several years, was analyzed by Sankrant Sanu and shown to be so full of bias and stereotypes, that it was withdrawn by Microsoft.

The Colonizer’s Mentality

RISA scholars condemn their Indian-American interrogators using no holds-barred hyperbolic terms to label and silence them. They are accustomed to dealing only with certain categories of Indians, and when they meet Indians outside of these boxes, their attempts to apply their standard tools of domination fail, leading them to great frustration. Malhotra notes:

1. Many Western scholars of Indian religions are adept at manipulating and dealing with poor villagers in India, whom they term ‘native informants’, and from whom they extract research data using their own precontrived filters. This has often been done with the collusion of Indian scholars, NGOs and intermediaries. The native informants feel obliged to dish out what is expected of them by the foreign scholar, who has a lot of grant money to spread around in the data gathering process.

2. In more recent times, these scholars have also had to deal with a second category of Indians—the semi-informed and naïve diaspora youth, called ‘heritage students’. Some scholars have been able to adjust their teachings to not seem blatantly anti-Hindu. Given the power and knowledge imbalance, they often adopt deceptively friendly demeanors and portrayals and succeed in fooling the youth into imagining that these scholars genuinely respect their traditions. They convince them that what they teach must be authentic. Duplicity and ambiguity are used as strategic tools by some, because it is widely believed that Hindus are non-confrontational by nature. (For more on how other scholars like John Keay, Antonio de Nicolas, Gayatri Chakravorty-Spivak And Dilip Chakrabarti look at this situation, please read page 112 and 113, chapter 10)

Under the subtitle We are Not Native Informants Any More! Malhotra explains how the power structure is shifting:

The specific kind of Indian that certain RISA scholars are most uncomfortable with, is the Indian who is already successful in a Western organization, and especially one who has managed over a large number of Westerners for an extensive period of time. Such a person is not likely to idolize them, or be easily taken for a ride. Any Indian who has succeeded in dealing with Westerners on their own turf must have enough insight into the Western mind, its strengths and weaknesses, and must be self-confident. Scholars can neither exploit such a person as a ‘native informant,’ nor patronize him in the same manner as a young NRI student looking for a good grade. For one thing, any such Indian is bound to challenge them, rather than accept their scholarship at face value, and is likely to be skilled at debate and negotiation.

An additional dimension stems from over-specialization, and the systematic exclusion from the peer-review process of experts such as traditional Indian pandits and other indigenous subject matter or language scholars. Within the Western academy, the more specialized a scholar is the less oversight and due diligence is possible, because there are fewer and fewer others who are able to challenge within that ultra specialized field. This breeds the cults of micro-specialties.

When assertive and knowledgeable Indians show up, the tables are suddenly turned. Malhotra describes three factors that work to preserve this power structure:

1. Western scholars like to prey upon uneducated Indians: The Western scholar of the humanities is sometimes unable to deal with the reality that she or he is lower on the West’s scale of rational training as compared to successful Indians who are well-educated in science, engineering, medicine, finance, management, entrepreneurship or other areas where analytical skills are critical. This business of depicting the Indian traditions as somehow irrational or backward is unsustainable in front of modern Indians . . . It is ironic that some scholars hide behind their ‘dense writings’ with great pride. Frankly, far too many writings from Religious Studies are poorly structured, loosely argued, and sometimes outright illogical. They have no
grounds for their arrogance about intellectual rigor.

2. The RISA Establishment has neutralized the most threatening Indian dissenters: Eurocentric scholars are accustomed to exerting power over Indians when they are in PhD programs, when they are seeking jobs in the academy, seeking to be included in conferences or publishing projects, and seeking favorable recommendations for tenure. Many Indians thus get reprogrammed as sepoys. However, when facing a successful Indian who neither wants nor needs their favors, many Eurocentric scholars feel powerless and threatened.

3. Empowered executive/entrepreneurial Indians are ignorant of this: Most Indians who have purely by chance encountered the kind of scholarship described in this chapter, and who are successful and assertive professionals independent of the academy, are inadequately informed and unable to deal with the scholars. This is why, from 1995 through 2000, I had to first prepare myself by devoting almost all of my time to reading extensively in a wide variety of humanities subjects. Most scholars are too busy with administrative and other routines, and their own particular line of research, to do this. This academic isolation makes any knowledgeable challenger especially threatening to their sense of superiority.

Many of these scholars of Indian Studies would love to silence the ‘threatening’ voices that call out their shortcomings. This reminds one of some corporate men who find it hard to respect a female boss. Revisiting the overblown anger of Gerald Larson and his colleagues regarding the alleged ‘hijacking’ of Hinduism Studies by Hindus, Malhotra observes:

Any attempt by Hindus to claim agency, or to take charge of their own affairs—be it looking after their own people without Western guidance, or be it doing scholarship to interpret and reinterpret their dharmas as they choose—is seen as an attack on the Eurocentric person’s domination of the world. This includes the Eurocentric person’s right to license those neocolonized persons he chooses to appoint under terms and conditions and under supervision ultimately controlled by Eurocentric people. One has to psychoanalyze the strange behavior of many neo-colonialized Indian scholars in this light.

The article ‘RISA Lila-1: Wendy’s Child Syndrome’ generated a tremendous response. Hundreds of comments were posted on Sulekha and the essay was discussed on numerous scholarly forums, including RISA. The Internet is diminishing the differential between the people on the plains (the Hindu laity) and the elite scholars of Hinduism Studies who inhabit the heights of the highly touted Ivory Towers. A paradigm shift is upon us.

Read entire chapter 10 from page 108 to 115

Pdf of the book is available for free download here.

Go to chapter 11


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