An Intellectual Kshatriya responds to Outlook article attacking petitioners

The below analysis was added as a comment under this Outlook article, by Megh. We are reproducing it here with suitable edits for easy and wide readability.

The comment contains an analysis and some counter questions to 5 statements in the Outlook article. The commentator has raised these issues based on statements in this petition and two video interviews given by Sheldon Pollock to Tehelka here and here.

Extract 1 from the Outlook article.
'“We do not find him petitioning against his own US government’s authoritative policies within its borders and around the world. Thus, it is crystal clear that Pollock has shown disrespect for the unity and integrity of India. We submit that such an individual cannot be considered objective and neutral enough to be in charge of your historic translation project.” The political line there being obvious enough.'


One key point (Focus) from the Extract 1
The political line there being obvious enough.


Excerpt from Sheldon Pollock interview/Petition relevant to Focus
Transcript from Video 2 of Tehelka interview on Hindutva and the Life and Death of Sanskrit: (Timestamp: 01:34-01:46) Sheldon Pollock says "I wrote an article once called the "The Death of Sanskrit", and it was meant to be provocative; you know I am very impatient with the sort of BJP/RSS/Hindutva kind, the whole alphabet soup of forces that celebrate a certain kind of partial view of Sanskrit (sic)"

Key counter point (question) to Focus
Professor Sheldon Pollock stated "I am very impatient with the sort of BJP/RSS/Hindutva kind"...Would authors Ajay Sukumaran and Stuti Agarwal use the same words "The political line there being obvious enough" in assessing Sheldon Pollock?

Extract 2 from article
“The gripe about Pollock from the opposite camp is that he doesn’t have a ‘rigorous understanding’ of Sanskrit...Any accusation to the contrary is based either on ignorance or wilful distortion of facts...."

One key point (Focus) from the Extract 2
The gripe about Pollock from the opposite camp is that he doesn’t have a ‘rigorous understanding’ of Sanskrit...Any accusation to the contrary is based either on ignorance or wilful distortion of facts.

Extract from Petition:
"However, such a historical project would have to be guided and carried out by a team of scholars who not only have proven mastery in the relevant Indian languages, but are also deeply rooted and steeped in the intellectual traditions of India. They also need to be imbued with a sense of respect and empathy for the greatness of Indian civilization.

We would like to bring to your notice the views of the mentor and Chief Editor of this program, Professor Sheldon Pollock. While Pollock has been a well-known scholar of philology, it is also well-known that he has deep antipathy towards many of the ideals and values cherished and practiced in our civilization.
..There must be a written set of standards and policies for the entire project, pertaining to the translation methodologies, historical assumptions and philosophical interpretations that would be used consistently in all volumes.

For example:

How will certain Sanskrit words that are non-translatable be treated?
What will be the posture adopted towards the “Foreign Aryan Theory” and other such controversial theories including chronologies?
What will be assumed concerning the links between ancient texts and present-day social and political problems?
Will the theoretical methods developed in Europe in the context of the history of ancient Europe, be used to interpret Indian texts, or will there first be open discussions with Indians on the use of Indian systems of interpretations?"

Key counter point (question) to Focus
Where in the petition have the petitioners claimed that Secular Sheldon Pollock (SSP) does not have a 'rigorous understanding' of Sanskrit? In fact, does the petition not include "...Pollock has been a well-known scholar of philology". Through the petition statement "However, such a historical project would have to be guided and carried out by a team of scholars who not only have proven mastery in the relevant Indian languages, but are also deeply rooted and steeped in the intellectual traditions of India.", is it, as alleged, that their gripe is about SSP's "'rigorous understanding' of Sanskrit" or is it about his credentials (or lack of it) about being "deep rooted and steeped in the intellectual traditions of India"? Such credentials are what Shri Rajiv Malhotra terms as an eligibility criteria for "Insiders" of Sanskriti, in his 2016-Amazon-Bestseller book "The Battle for Sanskrit".


Extract 3 from article
"There’s even a Sanskrit new­s­­reader and an ISKCON man in the mix."

One key point (Focus) from the Extract 3
There’s even a Sanskrit news reader and an ISKCON man in the mix.

Excerpt from Sheldon Pollock interview/Petition relevant to Focus
Excerpt from Video 1 on Hindutva and the Life and Death of Sanskrit: (Timestamp 06:31-06:36) Sheldon Pollock says "The Mahabharata is the most dangerous political story, I think, in the world because it is this deep meditation on the fratricide civil war".

Key counter point (question) to Focus
> A Sanskrit newsreader perhaps benefits from Sanskrit for a living and perhaps uses it actively; is he/she not a relevant stakeholder in a conversation about the author (Sheldon Pollock) of a paper named "The Death of Sanskrit"?
> Is an ISCKON man, who is also an Indian and 'not-necessarily-BJP/RSS affiliated' but sensitive to human rights of Hindus, not a relevant stakeholder in discussions where the Bharatiya epic Mahabharata is discussed? This timeless epic includes what many consider as Sacred, Living and Liberating - the  Shrimad Bhagavad Gita. When such a work is reduced to, in Sheldon Pollock's words, "the most dangerous political story", is the ISKCON man not entitled to question it? Moreover, do a Sanskrit newsreader and an ISCKON man not have same freedom of speech guaranteed by the Indian Constitution as Pollock does?

Extract 4 from article
"“No scholar I know has greater regard for the achievements of classical Sanskrit learning than does Prof Pollock. Any accusation to the contrary is based either on ignorance or wilful distortion of facts.” Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi, a professor of history at the Karnataka State Open University, who was Pollock’s student between 1995-2005, says he found it interesting that only a few signatories of the petition were language professors, linguists or historians; many were mathematicians and scientists."

One key point (Focus) from the Extract 4
...only a few signatories of the petition were language professors, linguists or historians; many were mathematicians and scientists.

Excerpt from Sheldon Pollock interview/Petition relevant to Focus
Excerpt from Video 1 on Hindutva and the Life and Death of Sanskrit: (Timestamp 18:16-18:27) Sheldon Pollock says "I have to say I am a very secular person and my interest in India has always been a secular interest"

Key counter point (question) to Focus
If being a language professor, linguist or a historian is the "eligibility criteria" for a comment on Sheldon Pollock to be considered credible, by the same logic, given Sheldon Pollock's own admission to being secular, would Ajay Sukumaran and Stuti Agarwal be open to objectively evaluate Sheldon Pollock's "eligibility criteria" to comment on what is considered Sacred (not Secular) to millions of Indians?

Extract 5 from article
"The petition initially carried extracts from Pollock’s 2012 talk at Heidelberg University, which ran contrary to the complaints against him. This part was later dropped in a revised version of the petition when the fallacious argument was pointed out!"

One key point (Focus) from the Extract 5
This part was later dropped in a revised version of the petition when the fallacious argument was pointed out!

Excerpt relevant to the counter point
Harvard Law School scraps official crest in slavery row (Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35726878)

Key counter point (question) to Focus
Harvard Law School just "dropped in a revised version", its long-standing (from 1930s) logo! What would the authors have to say about the relationship of that act to what Harvard Law School stands for?

Why Hinduism is simply not equal to Right Wing

The following is a reproduction of a seminal thought that Rajiv Malhotra articulates in the yahoo discussion forum. In this post he defines, describes and gives a whole new insight into why people propagating Hindu ideas/ideologies should not be calling themselves as right wing.

Here is the text reproduced in its entirety:

Many Hindu leaders refer to themselves as Rightwing in order to differentiate from the Left. The Left/Right categories need to be understood as an instance of Western Universalism not applicable to us.

After the French Revolution, in the new parliament it was possible for peasants also to get elected as MPs. Earlier the MPs were only feudal/landlords. However, the peasants and landlords elected did not like to sit together. For one thing, French people did not have the habit of bathing and hence their bodies would stink. The rich (landlords) had perfumes to cover up the bad odor. Perfume was expensive and used only by the rich. It was a sign of being rich. So the rich with perfume sat on one side, while the poor without perfume sat on the other side of the aisle in the parliament room. 

They did not know each other by name and the atmosphere was not always friendly. People started referring to an opponent as "the person on the Right (of the aisle)", and conversely, the man on the right would refer to "the person on the Left". The journalists started reporting to the debates as positions from the Left or Right respectively. This is how the poor seeking economic equality became known as the voices on the Left, while the elitists representing wealth were the Right.

A foolish JNU student once asked me, "Sir I am confused whether you are Leftwing or Rightwing. Please clarify who you are." 

I replied: My tradition is to bather my body daily. Hence no stink and no need for perfume to cover that up. So I cannot be classified either as some using perfume to cover up the odor, or as someone stinking because of the lack of perfume.

Jokes aside, the Left/Right categories are superficial, silly. In the West, Left/Right refer to two separate packages of values. But this simplification does not allow mixing and matching across these packages.

Right commonly means a religious (i.e. Judeo-Christian) person who supports pro-rich economic policy, and elitist social programs. The Leftist is for the poor, against religion, bigger government, etc.

Question: Was Mohandas Gandhi a Leftist or Rightist? He was championing the poor, making him a Leftist. But he was articulate about supporting his dharma, making him a Rightwing. Many Hindu organizations do a lot for the poor, contradicting this neat pair of categories. There are many "secular" elitists, billionaires, etc. - again not easy to put into a box.

Hindu economic thought reflected in itihas, dharmashastra, arthashastra, etc. cannot be classified as elitist. It just does not fit this strange classification system. The lifestyle mandated for a brahmin is very simple, hardky resembling the typical Rightwing American.

Hindus should not classify themselves as Rightwing. Many so-called champions of "the Hindu Right" have become sucked into WU and operate in this colonial framework.

However, I do refer to some of my opponents as Leftists, because THEY brand themselves proudly in this manner. I am simply calling them by the name they give themselves.

A White Hindu who attended my workshop yesterday in Washington did not understand why I criticized this Left/Right categorizing. I proposed that we abandon this way to classify ourselves, and classify behavior as dharmic/adharmic. Those ideas are better defined for us.

She falsely assumed that I meant: Right = dharma, and Left = adharma. Hence she felt my classification system of dharma/adharma was insulting. She has no clue what dharma/adharma means and yet she blogs as "White Hindu". Need for more education.

I am not merely changing words from English to Sanskrit. I am demolishing the framework in which Left/Right are ways of classifying all persons, my intention being to rescue Hindus from self-branding themselves as Rightwing.

As a Hindu I espouse many qualities of the American Left and yet many other qualities of the American Right. I am not limited by either. I disagree with many things on both sides. This grid does not capture who I am.

Rajiv follows up with this further elaboration of what is now beginning to happen in the West which in a few years will be imported to gullible Indians as a new ideology. 

Rajiv quotes an invite to a workshop on what is named as "Future Left":

See below example of how Amercians are dissatisfied with the Left/Right dichotomy and are trying to build a new "synthetic unity". Why do we want to import this artificial divide in the first place? And then a decade later we will be borrowing American "Future Left" to cure the disease we imported. Instead we should develop new smritis using our frameworks.

..............................................................................................................................................

A Virtual Caucus on the “Future Left"
Saturday, October 25, 2014,10:00 AM Pacific

We'll be explaining what we mean by the “Future Left”—and how you can recognize it in yourself and others, and why it represents the future of progressive politics. Elizabeth Debold will also be a panelist and together with Steve and Carter, we'll examine how progressive politics is changing and how you can play a role in that transformation.

Both Steve and Carter are close personal friends of mine and I have followed the development of their Institute for Cultural Evolution from its beginnings in 2012. Last April, their white paper, Depolarizing the American Mind, was released to the public on the same day as our Beyond Awakening dialogue, where Carter and Steve articulated their strategies for overcoming the "wicked" problem of political polarization in America by helping to evolve both the Left and the Right. Their thesis is that the political polarity of Left and Right is relatively permanent and existential, continuing to reappear in new forms as society changes and evolves. Their approach accordingly seeks to anticipate the future state of these existential political positions by describing the form that the “Future Left” and “Future Right” will likely take in the decades ahead. 

According to Carter and Steve:

An evolutionary principle for working with positive-positive existential polarities, such as “liberal and conservative”, is that each pole needs the other for its own further and fuller development. If one pole dominates or vanquishes the other, pathology is the inevitable result. Applied to politics, this principle indicates that the most sound and politically effective liberal and progressive positions will be those that integrate legitimate conservative values, while still remaining true to their original progressive values. Conservative values can serve to improve liberal positions by challenging and moderating such positions in a way that makes them stronger. The same can be said about the role of liberal values in strengthening conservative positions.

By helping progressive politics move from a position of antithesis, which rejects many of the values of the rest of American society, to a more synthetic position that can better value what America has achieved, we hope to contribute to the emergence of progressive political positions that are able to overcome polarization and accomplish many of their laudable political goals. As described in "Depolarizing the American Mind", we are working to evolve the overall consciousness of the American electorate by increasing the quality and quantity of what people are able to value.

I invite you to join us on Saturday and help to define and develop a more evolved form of left wing politics. In this free conference call you will:

• Better understand the deeper cultural and historical forces that explain how our nation has become increasingly polarized.
• Take part in a “participatory caucus” where you can voice your opinion and vote for your priorities.
• Develop a newfound hope and sense of potential in relation to the political, social, and environmental crises we currently face as a nation.
• Discover how to view current issues through a developmental lens―which changes how we think about creating change.
• Hear what pioneers of the “Future Left” have to say about the most important political issues of our time.
• Develop a new understanding of what political leadership entails from an evolutionary perspective.

To follow further updates on this thread please sign up on the yahoo discussion group. The thread can be followed here.

Hijacking Sanskrit Away from Hindu Dharma

Introduction

This detailed post, which analyzes the work of Sheldon Pollock, Professor of South Asian Studies at Columbia University, is a sequel to the article in this space that exposed the Hinduphobia of his protege Ananya Vajpeyi, and her 'Breaking India' network. We recommend that you read that post here first, to understand the background to this post. We must subject to intense scrutiny, the actual positions and writings of influential people like Pollock, who only appear to be on the side of Dharma, in order to avoid falling into the trap of getting misled and digested. Readers will discover here that what is going on is nothing short of a brazen attempt to hijack Sanskrit away from Hindu dharma.


Additional Background on 'digestion'
'Digestion' is a term coined by Rajiv Malhotra and has been discussed in various threads on this forum. To understand the process of digestion (if you are not familiar with the concept), please refer to these threads on this forum, or better still, join the discussion forum (link at the end of this post).
Difference between Digestion and Conversion
Why are Hindus Celebrating the Digestion of Hinduism? - Part 1 and Part-2
Jesus in India and Digestion of Hinduism


Here is a video link from Rajiv Malhotra's site for his book Being Different, which deals with this subject of digestion.

Summary

After summarizing Rajiv Malhotra response to Ananya Vajpeyi's article in the Hindu and elaborating on the ecosystem that is nurturing and promoting Hinduphobic scholars, it is important for us to take a step back and refocus on the bigger picture, starting with her mentor, Sheldon Pollock, who is currently very influential as an 'Indophile' among intellectual circles both in India and abroad. More importantly, he is gaining huge financial backing from wealthy and influential but misguided Indians who believe very naively that he has Dharma's best interest at heart.


This post might be updated in multiple parts over time, owing to the fact that this expose is slowly but surely developing as more scholars begin to scrutinize Pollock's work seriously and share their findings. This blog is a detailed introduction to readers to make them aware of a clear and present danger to India's Sanskriti, and Hinduism due to this well-entrenched and well-funded cabal of Hinduphobic scholars.

Who is Sheldon Pollock?

(picture linked from http://www.columbia.edu)

Rajiv Malhotra started the discussion by noting that Pollock was someone potentially more dangerous than Wendy Doniger, Professor of History of Religions at University of Chicago or Michael Witzel, Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University, because while the latter two were discredited before they had made their way to Indian billionaires and their deep pockets, it was a different case with Pollock. Doniger's and Witzel's sphere of influence was limited to the Indian leftists but Pollock was different in that he could persuade wealthy Indians into pledging huge funding to the Western nexus involved in project Breaking India. This is a hypothesis Rajiv Malhotra is now researching in order to get to the bottom of things.

Rajiv Malhotra says:

Pollock is the most successful person from this club to solicit millions of dollars from wealthy Indians. He is the new "raja of Sanskrit" as some Indian supporters like to call him. Pls see attachment in India Abroad newspaper showering praise for him -- dressed in dhoti etc and called a "pandit". Remember Sir William Jones who was saluted as a pandit by Indians? The PR machinery at Columbia has used many pathways to reach Indian media and wealthy Indians. He became useful to the Indian Left because he dished out "data" on Sanskrit which fit the views of Kancha Ilaiah, Arundhati Roy, and numerous others who were too ignorant of Sanskrit to backup their views. Now he wants to "secularize" sanskrit to make it more "mainstream". 

There is also a write-up on Pollock which appeared in the India Abroad magazine this June. Pollock is one of the recipients of the India Abroad Person of the Year 2013 Award. The document is embedded here.

Sheldon Pollock--India Abroad Award as FRIEND OF INDIA AND MEDI-1

Manish said:

Sadly, our fellow Hindus are quite often incapable of distinguishing a friend from a foe.....

..... Sadder still, we see this inability to distinguish friend from foe, show up not just in academia but in all fields, whether it is diplomacy, geostrategy, international trade, forging joint ventures, securing our energy supplies, cultural exchanges, collaborating in non-academic research ---- everywhere !! Our industrialists and corporate executives are huge huge suckers for the most part when it comes to sepoy like behaviour  (Narayan Murthy, Shiv Nadar, Anand Mahindra, Harsh Goenka --- their public statements and actions show a pattern of naïveté that's stunning).

It is so disheartening to see enemies of Hinduism laughing all the way while making suckers out of Hindus....and even worse is to see these naive Hindus feeling a perverse sense of pride in being suckered.

Sheldon Pollock's works

Sheldon Pollock comes across as a disciplined and charming individual who plays his cards close to his chest, saying the right thing, dropping the right names, and doing what is necessary to keep his projects going smoothly. To use a poker analogy, one has to scratch beneath the surface to detect Pollock's 'tell' - parsing the seemingly India-friendly statements by Pollock to detect those parts that gives his agenda away. Shalini reviewed the pdf to draw some important conclusions:

Start Quote: [Page M121, col 1]

My point is that in the last 50 years - these are hard questions and very few people talk about them openly and critically and knowledgeably, with a sense of the deep past - as a friend of India and a long term observer, words like janambhoomi and karmabhoomi - to take that particular case, have been captured, so to speak, by a certain politics in India today that makes it difficult to use those terms in a non-political way

End Quote

Me: Is the Sangh parivar, the Hindu Acharyas, and in particular the think tanks in the current BJP setup even looking at such statements carefully?

Start Quote: [Page M121, col 1]

Let me give you a silly example. Maybe it will resonate. I have a friend, a kannada writer, (U.R) Ananthamurthy. Bangalore was a big centre - I dont know if it still is - for the Sathya Sai Baba movement. []

Once he was on a plane and someone on the plane was passing out vibhuti, you know, ash that had been touched by Sathya Sai Baba. It was like a commodity. Like a contemporary commodity.

There was an elderly, very traditional gentleman in the plane with Ananthamurthy, dhotivallah type, very traditional. Somebody came up to him and said here is some vibhuti. He said: " No, I don't take it. I am a very traditional man."

The old tradition had a non-commodified sense of this precious material, the sacred ash. And in the present day it has somehow become commodified and I dont say cheapened.

End Quote

Me: So many things absolutely conjecture in this para. First, never miss the profiling done on the "dhotivallah type" as if all dhoti wearing people belong to a certain type of mindset.

Next, who is Pollock to spin a theory about commodifying the vibhuti? What is the basis for arriving at that conclusion? Nothing of the thought process that allowed him to state this has been explained by him. []

Then, the dhotivallah says he wont take it. Why does Pollock believe that his refusal to take the vibhuti has anything to do with commodification? []

This pdf tells us that Pollock's friends in Karnataka include UR Ananthamurthy and Girish Karnad, both known to be Hinduphobic, and virulently anti-Modi. However, identifying Pollock's tell also involves recognizing what Pollock leaves unsaid: and Pollock has absolutely nothing positive to say about Dharma and Sanskriti. Guru posted a two-part video of Pollock's interview to Tehelka, an Indian magazine. The video links can be found here and here. 

Guru writes in with this:

Though he claims to have a secular interest in researching Sanskrit, we can see he really has other motivations which he tries hard to disguise. His disdain and contempt for Hindu beliefs are very evident throughout the talk.

Earlier on, while describing his journey into Sanskrit studies, he says he wished to say he came to Sanskrit  as Saraswati came in his dream and asked him to be her lover, but he could not. 

Look at the appalling insensitivity towards non-judeo christian cultures. It is really sad that such people who disparage the Vedic Goddess of Learning are going to get grant from 'Sharada Peetam' of all places. []

Then around 3:40 he condescendingly berates the 'Ram janma bhoomi' movement and questions why myths like Ramayana are taken seriously in India to form parties around these when nobody forms parties in Rome around Virgil's Iliad. Note he finds Rama equivalent to Western tradition's mythic hero Virgil of Homer and not to its living tradition's "historical" figure of Jesus.

Even after being a Sanskrit scholar for so long, he happily treats Saraswathi like some Greek goddess Venus looking for mortal lovers. He equates Ramayana to Illiad just to make Hindus look dumb. This type of condescending behavior is deliberate and only miseducated liberals would be taken by it. []

Additional analysis of his interview reveals this:

At around 00:03:07, he refers to the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 and how that event spurred him on to be a torch bearer for secularism in India since he felt that classicism was being used as a very powerful political tool to influence narratives.

At around 00:14:22 Pollock says Sanskrit has to be kept safe from 'enemies of History', from anti-history people. He means that he is the savior to prevent destruction from modern day Hindus.

At around 00:14:36, Pollock talks about re-invigorating Sanskrit and allowing it to re-discover its "creativity" and "intellectual innovation" in a secular manner thus decoupling Sanskrit from Dharma.

At around 00:18:13 In response to the interviewer's question of whether there was energy just in chanting mantras which were according to interviewer's elders, put together scientifically, Pollock's answer is to DISMISS it by saying that energy is in the eyes of the beholder and that he is completely SECULAR.

At around 00:01:39 in part 2 of the interview, Pollock states his anti-Hindutva/BJP position very clearly.

At around 00:03:58, he says that Kannada and Sanskrit have played out their narratives as one which is something of a re-enactment of "Unity in diversity". And, he finds it CORNY to state that. Why?

A Hindu-funded Hijacking of Sanskrit

Rajiv writes back on the forum elaborating further on Pollock's positions especially with regard to Sanskrit. It is reproduced below.

In his famous essay titled "The Death of Sanskrit", he opens with the following paragraph. His political motives and his attitude towards Sanskrit is not in doubt:

"In the age of Hindu identity politics (Hindutva) inaugurated in the 1990s by the ascendancy of the Indian People’s Party (Bharatiya Janata Party) and its ideological auxiliary, the World Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Indian cultural and religious nationalism has been promulgating ever more distorted images of India’s past. Few things are as central to this revisionism as Sanskrit, the dominant culture language of precolonial southern Asia outside the Persianate order. Hindutva propagandists have sought to show, for example, that Sanskrit was indigenous to India, and they purport to decipher Indus Valley seals to prove its presence two millennia before it actually came into existence. In a farcical repetition of Romantic myths of primevality, Sanskrit is considered— according to the characteristic hyperbole of the VHP—the source and sole preserver of world culture. The state’s anxiety both about Sanskrit’s role in shaping the historical identity of the Hindu nation and about its contemporary vitality has manifested itself in substantial new funding for Sanskrit education, and in the declaration of 1999–2000 as the “Year of Sanskrit,” with plans for conversation camps, debate and essay competitions, drama festivals, and the like.

Yet this man got the [Padma Shree] (perhaps because of this work) received $20 [million] from Narayan Murthy to lead the translation of Indian classics, then became India Abroad's "Person of the Year in 2013.

The climax of his career is now happening. He is potentially going to control the selection of the scholar for a $3.5 million donation from a group in NY/NJ who are working with Sringeri mattha to set up this new Hinduism Chair at Columbia Univ. It will be the flagship of Sringeri mattha in the academy.

Pollock's game plan has gone through three phases:

1. First he established his credentials as a young Sanskrit scholar by doing translations of Sanskrit texts into English - using dictionaries as he is said to be unable to converse in Sanskrit. These were non controversial works =just to get established. But he is not a sadhak, hence it is textual analysis only.
2. Then he turned into a Leftist social scientist and started producing a large quantity of anti-Sanskrit works like the above quote. His thesis is that Sanskrit has been abusive against dalits, women, minorities. That the Aryans brought Sanskrit and its texts to India. That Hindu chauvinists are trying to revise history and claim otherwise. The above para quoted says it all.
3. Finally, he started to champion the revival of Sanskrit but in a specific manner: He wants to secularize it by removing or criticizing references that are Hindu. He considers mantras to devatas unimportant or even a problem. He is leading many projects in USA to bring Dalits to Columbia and train them in Sanskrit - which would be great if it were not done with any political spin. So what he ends up facilitating is a doctored up approach to Sanskrit that is not in line with our traditional approach. He praises this as "modernizing Sanskrit". This is similar to decoupling Yoga from Hindu in the name of "modernizing Yoga". The implication is that tradition is flawed and must be upgraded by de-contextualizing it of its dharma and thereby modernizing = secularizing it.

This is a replay of how Oxford became the world center for Indology in the British era. That was under British rule but now it is under Indian rule.

Indians in the next decade will throng to Columbia to get certified if they want to be taken seriously in India as Sanskrit experts. 

This means such Indians will get a heavy dose of Western hermeneutics which is the theoretical lens used in Columbia and elsewhere in Western academics. This lens sidelines all Indian siddhanta. It replaces the siddhanta with things like:

• Freudian psychoanalysis
• Western  feminism
• Subaltern studies
• Marxism
• Postmodernism
• 'Dalit studies
• etc

So traditional Sringeri interpretations of their own guru will fade away, and be replaced by the "modernized" fashions. Indian pandits and acharyas will find themselves at a disadvantage and feel like outsiders in such discussions, unless they submit themselves to get trained in hermeneutics -- in which case they will end up brainwashed as Ananya Vajpeyi did.

Our well-intended leaders simply lack enough competence to be able to make such strategic choices without a lot of coaching.

Even if the first occupant of the Adi Shankara chair planned at Columbia University is a good one for us, there are serious issues long term:

• Subsequent selections as per contract will be 100% controlled by Columbia U.
• The power center for Sanskrit studies will shift from Sringeri to USA. This means adhikars to run conferences and journals, control translations (Pollock already does that with Murthy's $5 million), produce the next generation of PhDs for deployment worldwide including India.
• This chair will be cited as a role model to approach all other matthas and Hindu organizations. Taking Hindu money and using it to control their discourse will become a fashion in the name of "collaboration", "globalization", "modernizing", etc.

It seems that we have not learned any lessons from what happened under the influence of Robert de Nobili in the 1600s, William Jones in the late 1700s, and Max Mueller in the 1800s. We are as colonized mentally as ever. Dangle some affiliation with westerners and look at the way many Indians go chasing the limelight.

Sringeri is the last remaining pure center we have from the past era that has never got compromised or violated during the long period of Mughal and then British rules. Now the question is: Are our own folks are paying money to invite foreign domination?

The same folks like Pollock/Ananya who despise"Brahmanical  hegemony" find it desirable to replace it with Western hegemony."

Readers interested in learning and participating in this vigorous discussion can do so by signing up with yahoo and joining the Rajiv Malhotra Discussion group. This particular thread can be followed here. 

A very important discussion has also started on the issue of setting up Hinduism chairs at universities in America using funding from Indians. We are adding it to this thread since it impacts very strongly here too. Sheldon Pollock is also in the process of getting the Shringeri Mattha to set up a chair at Columbia.

Bahu wrote in to say that Dharma Civilization Foundation (DCF) had an announcement to make which was that they were facilitating the setting up a Center for Dharma Studies in partnership with the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) at GTU, California. The announcement also stated that the first two courses were going to be offered in the fall semester of 2014.

Here is Rajiv Malhotra's response and a very important one too.

"This DCF is another initiative with similar characteristic to what I am criticizing at Columbia. The common facts are as follows:

1. I take some blame for having educated our diaspora for 20 years on the importance of entering the academy with Hinduism studies. But these folks are stuck on Release 1.0 of my proposals, whereas my experience with 20+ such academic initiatives has caused me to move on much further.
2. Typically, a group of businessmen want to become important, seen by the public to be helping dharma, want limelight as the next thing to achieve personally.
3. They lack specific competence to evaluate the subject matter expertise and content of the academy -- which requires far greater tapas than any of them did on this type of analysis or would be capable of doing.
4. Hence they look at superficial things. I constantly hear things  like "they are nice people", "they say good things about Hinduism", etc.
5. These rich donors do not even know basic things about the history of de Nobili, William Jones, Max Mueller, and the armies of modern anthropologists. They lack understanding of concepts like digestion, sameness, etc. They are so easily duped and impressed.
6. They dont know, and worse still, they do not want to know, details that would be discomforting and would require getting outside their comfort zones. To use business terminology qwhich they understand, they have not done independent due diligence on the subject matter. In their own field of specialty they would never invest millions on some venture with no due diligence just because the recipient of the investment is "a good person". They know that persona of the other party is not enough to support some project. But here that mental faculty gets switched off. What takes over is the craving for acceptance at the high table of white establishment, maybe a deep inferiority complex that even millions of dollars has not overcome.
7. To get legitimacy, they rope in some blessing from a well-know Hindu guru, preferably by naming a chair after him or his organization.
8. But the guru, though extremely well-meaning, has not gone into specific details. He assumes these people have done that already. So he trusts them and gives his blessings. After all, gurus routinely bless those who are sincere devotees.
9. To do "industry analysis" of this field, one has to survey prior experience in 20 or so similar initiatives. What happened to the programs later on? Did they produce anygame-changing impact in our favor? Was the activity merely for show, lots of meetings, events, gatherings, talks, etc. -- but so what? Did they change the discourse in our favor on any specific issue? The answer is always NO. I have yet to meet any donor who can answer such questions in a satisfactory manner.
10. Even when the first appointment is pro-Hindu, the long term control is lost. That's how the contracts read in all such cases. A good example is the UCLA chair on Indian History named and funded by Naveen Doshi, a real estate millionaire in LA. After his own friend Prof Sardesai (who was good for us) retired as the first occupant of the chair, UCLA insisted on selecting their own choice, despite Doshi's complaints and threats to litigate. The small print gave them that right. His "nice guy" contacts (God Cops) vanished, and let the "academic system" (of Bad Cops) decide as per it "own procedures". Here's the irony: THE DOSHI CHAIR OCCUPANT TODAY DOES NOT WANT TO EVEN SIT DOWN WITH MR DOSHI FOR A CUP OF TEA, DOES NOT RETURN HIS CALLS OR EMAILS. Doshi ji says there is no cooperation and the Chair occupant is a radical leftist who hates everything Doshi cherishes about Indian history. I feel sad for Navin Doshi, a kind man who meant well.
11. The single biggest problem I have is that DCF is empowering a Christian Seminary to run the discourse on Hinduism. I dont care who sits on that chair at least short term.
12. Analogy: Would you like the idea of outsourcing the job of purohit/acharya to the Vatican, if they came with a proposal to do a good, professional job? Believe me, I come across morons who say "Yes, why not, if they can do a good job". Would you outsource the Indian Army work to the Pak army if they came with a cost-effective proposal? I hope no Indian army official is foolish enough to say "yes".
13. The long-term issue is transfer of adhikar, transfer of prestige of learning centers from India over to Western controlled centers. Its like relocating Varanasi to the Vatican. Already Nalanda-like universities that attracted the brightest from all corners of Asia are now in the West in terms of global influence. Future generations of scholars from Indian ashrams would be sent to these seminary-controlled centers of learning as in the case of Berkeley, or leftist controlled as in the case of Columbia. Hinduism will become like a library of clip art for others to cut-paste and add to their own repertoire, and what unusable will sit in museums.
14. Next we might expect some announcement that another major guru has set up his chair in Saudi Arabia because some rich sheikhs promised good things and because they can do a great job for us.
15. How can people be so stupid, even after complaining so angrily that control of yoga has slipped away from Hindus over to Western institutions?
16. Why are such initiatives not first discussed in open hearings with Hindu intellectuals invited to voice issues, and debate in the true spirit of dharma? Why the hush hush until "it is a done deal" and then announced with a guru's blessings to make it beyond question?
17. Why is there no uproar comparable to what we saw against the Doniger matter?This sellout from within is far worse because it is sold in the name of helping Hinduism become mainstream.

You can join in this discussion here. Registration is free.

Prevent Digestion and Distortion of Holi!

We thank Raj ji for this post that summarizes discussions on Holi from March and August 2013. Examples of how Holi festival of Hindus is being distorted and potentially ready to be digested either into some secular "festival of colors" or some Christian "Holy" day, etc. 

The discussion was initiated by a member who followed up with Desh from Houston who talked about the Holi celebration there: "I was one of the participants there. It was predominantly attended by Hindus.. It was a day of fun and colorful abandon!!

If the presence of a politician causes some surprise, so be it. Indians in Houston are now becoming more politically active especially with [] contesting for State Representative in the upcoming elections. She goes to work wearing "sindoor" in her "manage" every day and has a Ganesh ji locket around her neck always. And mind you, Pete (Olsen) is a strong supporter of all things Hindu and Indian; has been pro-India since the beginning of his political career."



Arun asks Desh: Why does our Holi celebration become an event of "digestion"?
I honestly fail to understand Desh ji's logic here. Can someone please explain?

Rajiv comment: I agree with Arun. The issue at hand is not about digestion, but about potential distortion. Digestion would be if (as in the case of yoga) mainstream Americans were appropriating Holi into some kind of festival claimed to be their own - as they did with Halloween. But the examples cited do not apply to American digestion of Holi, rather they concerned Indians in USA morphing their own symbols and festivals - i.e. difference anxiety from below.

Raj posts:
Digestion of Holi is happening at a rapid pace and it is now gone global. Please see this. The main "fun" aspect of Holi -throwing colors- got disconnected, secularized and now it has been digested.

In an earlier discussion on this topic of "Holi Digestion" (message 2343), it was about Americans participating in our celebration.... Now Americans have taken over. This Color Run was started by someone in Utah, where Holi celebration has been a big draw in recent years.
.... also starting this year [another example] ... The timing of this also coincides with when our local India Association usually organizes Holi - first or second weekend of April.

Babu: That celebration in Utah was done by ISCKON devotee and was done as per the Purana without any [digestion/distortion].... We will be doing the similar celebration in LA this summer. Holi similar to played by Bhagwan  Krishna in Golokdham is a traditional Vaishnav north India celebration.

Raj responds:
One more organization combining 5K races & Holi colors...  I have looked around and so far no organization has specified the ... Hindu culture as the source for this fun activity of throwing colors.

Easter & Mardi Gras - Digesting Holi
For many years our local India Association has celebrated Holi in April, as weather gets warmer. In the same event, they also have Easter egg hunts to make it more fun for children. With growing popularity of Holi, we can expect throwing colors to become part of "traditional" American Easter celebration along with the bunny & eggs which were digested from European pagans. Holi could get fully digested into Easter within this generation itself. ...our local ColorRun happened on April 6th, just after Easter (March 31st for 2013).

Holi colors are already directly associated with Mardi Gras now in New Orleans.

Rajiv comment: Mardi Gras is itself a digestion of pagan festival. The same predator is digesting everything else that it can eat up and turn into some exotic pop culture.

In another thread Shanti posts:
"I came across this article in the Sunday Times about Holi festival becoming a rage in Europe, being marketed as the 'Holi One'. I went to the HoliOne website to check. They acknowledge that they have been inspired by the Holi festival in India. But how long before it is called 'Holy One' ?

This also has to be looked at as another instance of digestion at the social level. It is a dangerous kind of 'digestion' as it is started by entrepreneurs with a seemingly innocuous money-making business purpose. Many would view it as harmless. Should we? "

From a recent facebook post by Raj:
"Yes, such false equivalence of similar sounding words, using folk etymology & fabricated folklore, are used to claim sameness of two vastly different systems - where one side has been a remorseless plunderer. You can easily spot the U-Turning 'liberal' when they claim "same knowledge/practice is available *everywhere*" while appropriating something that they clearly got only from India. Millions of heathens have sacrificed everything to preserve these cultural treasures, bravely facing centuries of slaughter & censure. But appropriators who don't know the history get offended if we barely raise an eyebrow. We are expected to just mutely watch. Only free speech we are allowed is politically correct silent sigh.

I have posted here before about digesting Holi. RM had predicted that it'll become part of Easter. Just like the Christmas tree. What's worse: some of the funds raised by these color runs could be getting funneled thru do-gooder 'charities' that are involved in heathen cultural genocide. To demonize us, foremost authority 'scholar' #WendyDoniger has written that our barbaric Hindoo ancestors used to throw blood on each other for Holi. If such shaming & censuring doesn't make the heathen give up, secularize, appropriate & christianize it: yoga, bharathanatiyam, holi etc



http://modgepodgefeminism.wordpress.com/.../is-color.../

http://the-exercist.tumblr.com/.../why-i-will-not-join...

http://browngirlmagazine.com/2013/04/color-run-controversy/

http://youarenotdesi.tumblr.com/.../for-nadya-i-read-your...

 

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