Rajiv Malhotra's messages

Recently, Rajiv Malhotra [RM] shared details of his personal journey via his article in the 'Speaking Tree' - http://www.speakingtree.in/blog/my-journey-businessman-to-philanthropist-to-scholar-to-victim-556443. As much as his story is inspirational in itself, what really caught my attention was the guidelines enlisted in eight points that RM recommends for the supporters of the Indic traditions. I had originally intended to write a short blog on these eight points, but I kept on writing. The end result is that I have divided the blog into four parts -  the first part summarizes RM's messages, and Part II conveys the importance of these messages. These set up the context for the guidelines to becoming an Intellectual Kshatriya (defined later), i.e. why one must care for the Indic traditions. These guidelines are then reproduced at the end of this blog (Part III) followed by my personal thoughts on these guidelines (Part IV).

Part I - RM's messages:

His 'Speaking Tree' article is a must read for everyone! We will not go into his personal life details (the reader can read for themselves), nor go into the extensive details of his work. We will only look at some of the key messages. To know the gist of Rajiv Malhotra's works, one only needs to read the first two paragraphs of the brilliant article by Aditi Banerjee. In these paragraphs she encapsulates the essence of RM's works from the past two and a half decades. Aditi's article was in response to the flawed plagiarism charges against RM few months back.

RM's main message in this article, and indeed in a lot of other forums, is that the Indian tradition is facing imminent threat both from outside and within. The threat is based upon the generic notion that the Indic traditions are unworthy of being followed and therefore India needs to be 'saved'. RM's works explain why the Indic traditions are rich and harmonious and indeed crucial to India and in fact the world. To counter this attack against the Indic tradition, RM is urging the followers of the Indic traditions to stop being passive listeners, and that it is high time they become intellectually alert. This alertness, or lack thereof, is intertwined with the education system prevalent in India. He cites some of the maladies afflicting the Indian education system today when he briefly compares and contrasts the education system prevalent in pre-colonial India and the current modern/post-modern education system, a legacy from the time Industrial Revolution began in Europe. He finishes the article with some suggestions on how to become intellectually active participants in this battle for the Indic traditions.

Continuing with the current education system, he also criticizes the "scaffolding" that has been created in the modern system where an academician wanting to progress a career must toe the line drawn by a select few. Who are these select few? Typically, high profile academics in Ivory Towers (another name for Universities, pejoratively used sometimes by academics themselves). The scaffolding comes from this misplaced belief that any knowledge coming from outside of Ivory Towers must be bogus, especially in non-hard-science fields such as social science. RM points this out vis-a-vis Indic studies by Western Indologists. These academics have developed a specific theory on what Indian civilization is and nobody (or even a group of individuals) outside of their line of thinking is meant to challenge it. The intellectual alertness, RM asserts, comes from being aware of this dynamics at play and then coming out of one's comfort zone to challenge this Western notions about Indic traditions in various capacities. Drawing from his traditional Indian knowledge, he calls this intellectual alertness and the capacity to challenge the prevalent ideas of Indic tradition based on solid research and logical reasoning, as 'Intellectual Kshatriya-ness'. [ness] is my addition.

Part II - Importance of RM's messages:

So how does one go about becoming an Intellectual Kshatriya [IK]? In his speaking tree article, RM summarizes the qualities essential for a successful IK. The following two paragraphs briefly trapezes through RM's journey following which the 'qualities' of an IK are mentioned. The readers can jump forward to these points (Parts III and IV) skipping RM's journey if they so wish. It is however suggested that one reads RM's journey to get the import of his messages and his recommended guidelines.

When one looks at RM's career profile one finds he is trained in Physics and Computer Science from an elite American University. Subsequently, he became a very successful entrepreneur. How then, did he get into social studies where he crossed paths with the Western Indologists? Following advice from his guru, that he should give something back to the society, he gave up his business (more on this later) and immersed himself in charity work - volunteering at the AIDS center, serving at the Kitchen soup, footing the education bill for strangers and acquaintances - the whole gamut. In terms of Indic studies, he originally started out as a 'regular' Indian who gave donations to scholars for such studies, and in return would be showered with accolades. However, over time he realized he was being side-lined as a 'feeder' whose only job was to be a funding-source to these scholars, who would then create whatever theories they themselves deemed correct. Alarmingly, these theories invariably showed the Indic traditions in poor light. Why were these theories a problem? Simply because his personal adhyatmic practise under a guru based on the same Indic traditions that the Indologists were writing about, told him a diametrically opposite story compared to the popular Western theories about these traditions. Here is an example. RM willingly gave up his multi-million dollar business which is quite common and a unique feature in the Indic tradition continuing since millenia - King Ashoka from the pre-common era (B.C.E.) and more recently (June 2015) one of India's billionaire businessman, Shri Bhanwarlal Doshi, gave it all up to join the order of Jain monks. These examples are important as it brings forth two points that are readily apparent - 1] the homogeneous unity in the Dharmic tradition of India, while Ashoka followed Buddhism, RM followed a Hindu path and Sri Doshi became a Jain monk - all three have the common ground of Dharma as its foundation. 2] The uniqueness of this tradition to India. It is one thing to become a billionaire and donate money while still maintaining one's billion dollar bank account, but a completely different cup of tea to let go of an entire business empire. RM sold his business for $1! This requires extreme mind training of non-attachment, which is a critical component of all the Dharma-based mind sciences. These mind sciences are mentioned in texts dating back to well over thousand years. One of the current Western theories is that Hinduism (Neo-hinduism to be exact) is a repackaged version of Western ideas and therefore barely a century old! Therein lies the crux of RM's message of being intellectually alert, of becoming an Intellectual Kshatriya to protect the age old tradition from such West produced theories.

Coming back to RM's story on how he entered social studies, following such bold assertions by the Western academia about Indic Traditions, an example of which is mentioned above, was when he decided to perform his 'due diligence' on this 'Indic study industry', as he fondly called it subsequently. The answers to questions such as: how many full time scholars are there in the West who study Indian civilization? Who funds them? Where do these knowledge outputs go (Conferences, Journal articles, Post-graduate thesis etc.)? Who uses these outputs and how is this knowledge used?, showed a completely new picture to him. The books that he subsequently published is a result of his single-minded devotion to the task at hand.

Part III - RM's core points on becoming an IK:

We read his books, listen to his talks/lectures and we learn a great deal. This is akin to Dharampal's writings from a few decades ago where he was showing the true picture of the pre-colonial India as obtained from the archives present in the British libraries. Both Dharampal and RM have been Intellectual Kshatriyas. RM knows much and has experienced much. Since his outputs are in direct contrast to the Ivory Tower publications and more importantly, aims to show the true picture of what is happening in the background, he has had to endure a lot of personal attacks. This has been a long battle as well - not for the faint of heart. Based on his experiences, RM has presented some guidelines to enable others who also wish to be on this path. Let us now look at these guidelines for becoming IKs, which are reproduced verbatim for the full effect. Here goes:

To do the kind of work I do, one must have the following qualities:

1. The uncompromising dharmic commitment to want to do this even if a heavy personal price is paid. This requires sadhana to be grounded and have resilience.
2. The freedom from needing to generate monthly income.
3. The freedom from greed to go on accumulating materially.
4. The risk-taking ability and fearlessness.
5. Originality, creativity and ability to think out of the box.
6. The intellectual calibre to study intensely detailed works and decode the other side; then be able to write well-structured arguments.
7. Autodidact with a genuine interest in the subject matters at hand.
8. Extensive experience managing Westerners from a position of authority – i.e. not be weak or obsequious in facing aggressive Westerners.


Part IV - My thoughts on RM's points:

Each of these points are extremely critical and equally important and they flow sequentially from one to the next. Following are my thoughts on the aforementioned points.

[1] Uncompromising Dharmic commitment:
This commitment comes from a deep sense of respect and sense of pride for the Indic Traditions. The Western Indology writings projecting these ancient traditions in a poor light, attack this very sense of pride/respect vigorously. RM's work in throwing the spotlight back on the nature and the reasons behind such writings therefore assumes even more importance. However, each individual IK must do his or her own research and put in the hard work to gain mastery over what is at stake. This requires serious commitment to the task at hand. This commitment must be uncompromising as there will be guaranteed challenges (in all its forms) along the way as RM's journey amply shows.

2] Freedom from the need to generate monthly income:
As an extreme example, a person barely able to garner 2 square meals a day is merely surviving. Hence, though this person could be practicing the Indic tradition, this person cannot be expected to join the 'intellectual battle' as his/her energies are consumed in meeting the basic needs. This is a serious dilemma for the supporters of Indic traditions as there is scant financial resources available.

3] Freedom from greed:
This is for people who have managed to place themselves well above the basic needs pointed in [2]. The question for people in this category is: what brings about a sense of achievement in them - fighting for a cause without the guarantee of fame/notoriety OR amassing material wealth and status? A person aspiring to become an IK, the answer is rather obvious.

4] Risk taking ability and fearlessness:  
Okay, so lets say our man has his basic needs met and his sense of achievement comes from fighting for the Dharmic/Indic traditions. How far could our man go without a healthy dose of fearlessness and courage? Not too far. Recall that the Ivory Towers hold all the cards at the moment - funds and institutions backing them. They can therefore speedily mobilize their vast resources to counter anyone who dares to challenge their theories. This is the 'Goliath' in the story - play on word very much intended. Does our man, lets call him 'David', have the courage to take on the 'Goliath'?

5] Originality, creativity and ability to think out of the box:
Even when [2]-[4] are present in our man, this is not a physical 'David-sling-shots-Goliath-to-death' narrative. This is an intellectual battle. Our proverbial David has to prepare an 'intellectual sling-shot' and aim at the 'intellectual weak-point' of Goliath. Clearly, this calls for intellectual creativity and alertness.

6] Intellectual calibre to do a purva-paksha:
Finding the intellectual weak-point of 'Goliath' is akin to performing purva-paksha and requires some minimum intellectual calibre. This is self-explanatory and flows readily from [5] above.

7] Autodidact with a genuine interest:
I had to open a dictionary to find out what 'Autodidact' meant. The act of opening the dictionary to find out what RM was trying to convey was Autodidactive. Autodidact = self-learning. The effort required to learn things out of ones own initiative comes naturally if the person is genuinely interested in the subject at hand.

8] Extensive experience in engaging an aggressive Westerner:
Well, now that [1]-[7] are in place, the David-Goliath battle actually begins. However, unlike the popular 'David-Goliath' story where Goliath is well and truly dead after a single sling-shot, our 'David' needs to be prepared for multiple combats, learning from each engagement and continuously improving, for the 'Goliath' in this intellectual battle is not going away any time soon! Experience is necessary.

How tapasya leads to anubhava and then knowledge

This is a very poignant post on the tapasya that is required to become proficient at taking audacious positions as Rajiv has done and explaining them.

Sujeev, a forum member, posted this article, with the following comment:

Sriram Chadalavada writes as if he was the one who discovered the utility of Confucius institutes to the Chinese. Not a word about Rajiv Malhotra, who as far as I know, is the only one who has been talking writing publicly about Confucius Institutes for the longest time. What's up with these people?

To this Rajiv responded:

• People downgrade my tapasya when they say my contribution is merely one of "coining words" or "saying xyz" before others. My coining words or talking something comes much later, years later. First comes the tapasya that eventually leads to insights. Talking comes much later and then at times words get coined.
• In the case of Confucian Institutes, my real contribution was that I visited the China Institute in the 1990s, where I spent days at a time learning their global strategy, and then wrote about it and talked about it later. The tapasya was not a matter of sitting at a keyboard. I also visited Japan Foundation, Korea Foundation, Tibet House, Council on Islamic Education and other similar places to learn how others are doing this work. Its this hard work that matters not just speaking something.
• Recently Aseem Shukla of HAF wrote that I was not the first to use Mutual Respect term. I agree with him. He concludes that his usage and mine are therefore on par. This I disagree with. He did not go to 100+ interfaith events and stick his neck out challenging the "tolerance" advocates by explaining mutual respect and how it differs. I did that for 10+ years before talking about it in Hindu groups. When I said this in gatherings, for years I was isolated, sidelined as "too controversial". I put up with the attacks with no Hindu willing to come to my defense. It was more convenient to avoid me as a troublemaker so that they would not spoil their image.
• I have learned what I know by getting out of my comfort zone, sticking my neck out and taking person risks. I have been outcast from my own social high flier groups both in India and USA as most people dont want to get embarrassed by the controversies I create with my audacious writings. This sacrifice and process is what people like Aseem do not appreciate. He is a smart young man but has not ventured out of the comfort of a high paid medical career at its peak, which is what I did by age 44. Note that my children were only age 13 and 10 when I quit everything concerning career/business or income producing. My wife is a homemaker with no income. When you do this drastic transformation, you have burned all bridges from a conventional vyavaharika life, and put yourself in divine hands - my guru and the supreme being. Only then did my true tapasya start.
• The process took many years of persistence - internal meditation + studying + external encounters with all sorts of people. 
• At first my guru did not allow me to go public with anything I was doing, saying it would fatten my ego and I would be superficial and mainly trying to show off. Then, after many years, I was encouraged by guru to start talking about my anubhava with various matters.
• So the difference is tapasya leading to anubhava, which eventually leads to 'coining words' and talking about xyz.
• Unless you know what went into the tapasya, you cannot understand my anubhava, and you will not know why I create gravitas by coining of words or other discourse. There is shakti in the tapasya and this flows into the activism. One becomes a channel for the divine to work through.
• These outputs presented to the samaj are the prasad of tapasya. 
• This is where all these high flier new activists are deficient. They have not made the sacrifice required. They have lined up opportunistically to claim credit after the hard word and risk have been done by others. They stick to goody-goody Hindu leadership and want me to do the risky and hard tapasya all on my shoulders.
• Their strategy is to sit on the sidelines and watch from a distance to see if my intervention succeeds or fails. If it fails they can disassociate from it, wash their hands off of it. If it succeeds, they can jump in later and claim the credit. 
• But as I age and life withers away gradually, I wonder was it worthwhile since there are very few genuine tapasvis. 

Ragini Sharma takes on Rambachan

A Forum Member responds to Anantanand Rambachan 

Anantanand Rambachan, ever since he has been called out as being one of the proponents of the Neo-Hinduism thesis in Indra's Net has been attacking Rajiv Malhotra personally. His latest is in a piece in the Open magazine.

Ragini Sharma, one of the forum members of Rajiv Malhotra's discussion forum wrote a brilliant rejoinder to Rambachan's attack, as a comment below his article. It is reproduced here, along with brief follow up comments from Rajiv ji.

Dear Anantananda,

With all these accusations and counter accusations, I thought I must be fair to you and therefore I just did some research on you. So you studied 3 years with Dayanand about Advaita and you say you learnt some practices and then you spent the rest of your career as a Prof. at an evangelical Christian University in the US to teach about what you know.

According to the Olaf U website you and “a regular participant in the consultations of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue at the Vatican” and your writings seem to directed towards the Christian community - to explain Hinduism to them. I have read several of your articles. I am not impressed with that but I do see Rajiv's point about your neo-Hinduism ideas because its the type of ideas that Paul Hacker, the founder of Neo-Hinduism, had. Like you, Hacker was educated in Yoga and Advaita,  he then converted to Catholic faith, and was doing this Hindu-Christian dialogue. You did not.

Now I saw your earlier article that you do not refer to Hacker in your thesis, but it is not contested that you PhD Supervisor, Ursula King, did write a translation on Hacker and would be an influence on you. All your talk about you wanting to "interrogate" Advaita and the sacred texts and revered gurus and you need to "critically evaluate in order for the tradition to be relevant and creative" reeks of neo-Hinduism. The problem is that your interrogations are within the Doniger-Pollock-Clooney-Rambachan clique. If you are honestly interested in interrogating the truth, why not have this dialogue with Hindu practitioner scholars in India - with the current religious leaders in India who do never read western academic work - they are the ones who live it, breathe it and have the most invested in its survival.

You would agree that it is the oral tradition, of guru paramparas, that have preserved the sacred knowledge - not your books, written texts. Whatever, is written is a fraction of what is known to the oral tradition even today - along with its cultural context. Work like yours and other western non-practitioner scholars do not come close to knowing what the oral tradition lives - in the hearts of devotees. You do not have an ounce of devotion in you - and Bhakti -devotion, which cannot be divorced from Gyan because it permeates every cell of the disciple that learns at the feet of the Master, while he questions the teachings, with an open mind. The Guru is happy when his disciple turns out to be more learned than him or her. And, the love of the guru is equal to 1000s of mothers, and guru is exalted in all Vedic traditions. You just never had one - I mean a guru you gave your heart to. You are stuck in the head.

Just to give you a fair chance, I thought I would check out some of your talks. Again, Rajiv is right. You are well intentioned but you are an apologist for a Hindu. I have posted the links to the videos below - I am referring to your talk at the KAICIID Global Forum of 2013 - a multi-faith dialogue on how religions conceive the Other. Your introduction to this idea of the other in Hinduism was pathetic and apologetic, no mention of Vasudev Kutumbakam or Hindus' illustrious history of giving shelter to Jews, Parsees, Buddhist etc.; or that there are over 300,000 mosques in India and almost as many Muslims as in Pakistan, living in peace, as compared to in the rest of the word. You did not say anything about 800 years of rape, murder, killing of Hindus by Mughals, burnt libraries, and the Muslim Iconoclasts (Goel) who smashed every temple they could find in India - millions and the cultural genocide. Never mentioned the Goa Inquisition of the Catholic Church and the menace of conversions today by saffron robed Christians - the shame of acculturation, which by the way I hope you talk about in your classes you teach. Or the stealth of thousands of our Sanskrit texts by German, English and others.

Rajiv is completely right - because, you DID bring up the issue of caste and shamefully in the context of religion. Not only is this contested by Hindus who assert the caste system is not in the Vedas, which have varna, and also the social context of jati. You call yourself a Professor but you present yourself as ashamed of your Hindu roots. Can you bring up the issue of Hinduphobia in the academia - about Wendy's and her protégés horrible sexualisation of Hindu gurus, deities and texts? Do you have any guts to defend Hindu rights? No, for that we need Rajiv.

At the same time, at the conference, the Muslim cleric began by reciting a Koranic prayer, and to lecture about tolerance, Islamophobia, racism, multiculturalism. No mention of extremism or problems with its religion - Pakistan has 15% Hindus - now has 2%, they were killed off. There are hardly any temples left. there and Shias, Ahmediyas are being killed.

The Jewish presenter talked about "humanity as one", hegemony, tolerance. You could learn pride in one's religion from these people, they have no less intra-religious conflicts and problems.

The Catholic Priest presenter took the cake - its the religion that has the history of causing cultural genocide and mass killings in every corner of the world. And the sexual abuse of children all over the world. Yet, he only talked about how great the Pope was and his religion was.

Also, there was Buddhist priest from China who lectured everyone about extremism - no mention of atrocities on Tibet. She preached others about harmony of non-sectarian, practical use of faith. Amazing.

You looked sheepish and ashamed of Hindu faith - you are not fit to represent our wonderful faith to the world. Yes we have problems, but lets present a balanced picture, with honesty and talk about the progress that has been made, considering our own cultural genocide and continued assault on our religion from all sides. Rajiv Malhotra does that. Can you return the western gaze or are you a colonized Hindu? Your talks and writing demonstrate you speak as the latter.

I also saw your talk on Karma and forgiveness. It was so Christianized - no mention of the mystery of karma - you never mentioned the reincarnation either which is such an important aspect of karmic theory.

Anantananda, here are the links. I wish you well and hope you can find some courage. And attacking Rajiv for exposing your half-heartedness Hindu self is not going to do it for you.  And trying to present Rajiv, who lives to protect Hindu Dharma, as a terrorist, is pathetic and shameful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBbtDWq7Kzg Jewish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH2uvefumQ0 Catholic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYnWhZiBQxo
Muslim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5iSJDrq3AY
Chinese buddhist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljKdLzMOSLI Rambachan

Rajiv Malhotra's followup comments

• Ragini's new comment deserves to be posted as an article, so I hope people will do so wherever they can.
• The Rambachan-Richard Fox nexus becoming clearer all the time.
• Wondering why Aseem Shukla, otherwise quite level headed, fell into this and cannot see the big political picture.
• I would respect Rambachan a lot more if he wrote on the contentious issues rather than "defense by offense". In other words he should act like a philosopher he claims to be, and argue his point that Vivekananda did not properly understand Vedanta. Why obsessed with personal defensiveness?

 

Indian DNA and civilization - Reflections

Rajiv Malhotra posted a link to a New York library exhibition about Africans in India by the Schombury center for research in b lack culture.

Exhibition on how Muslim slave owners brought Africans to India. Later brainwashed as natives victimized by Aryans http://t.co/rwho0h3OgM

— Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage) October 11, 2015

This blog states his views in the forum on this topic.

Aryan/Dravidian identities a hoax. Indian DNA & cultural matrix is a complex and open web. Read my views at: https://t.co/csKPdnKa4t

— Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage) October 11, 2015

 

1. First of all we must differentiate between hardware and software. A person with any DNA (hardware) can adopt any culture (software) he wants. Hence, the issue of whether Indians share common DNA is unrelated to where their languages came from - as it is possible for cultures to travel.
2. I do believe based on everything I have read that there is a common DNA substratum shared by all Indians. Hence there is no such thing as separate Aryan/Dravidian DNAs.
3. Remaining still on the hardware side, there were many immigrant groups entering the country each bringing its own DNA pool. Africans were brought as slaves by the Muslims in the past 800 years. Portuguese settled in Goa, British and French in many parts of India. Many Brits had Indian wives - this was a common part of British high society in India until 1857, after which time it was British policy to discourage Brit from marrying Indians. Then the Brits based in India started having concubines and affairs and had children from these. 
4. Typically, the Middle East Muslims and European Christians each raised their Indian offspring in their respective religions. So in a variety of ways, the DNAs of various foreign peoples started to mix within India. Some of the new groups formed their own separate jatis while others mixed with the Indian mainstream. So the shared DNA substratum has ethnic diversity within it as well.
5. Indians also migrated outwards in all directions. For instance, many Indians were taken as slaves to Central Asian slave markets during the Muslim rule and sold at various prices. This is well documented. At times the trades involved lakhs of slaves taken in long journeys. Indians were also brought to Middle East for various kinds of high paying jobs - like they go today. 
6. Similar DNA mingling occurred across other countries - within Europe, Turkey as a major mixing ground of people from many places, etc. Even Chinese are not of homogeneous DNA.
7. None of the above tells us by itself where Sanskrit, Vedas etc originated. That needs to be researched as an independent issue. Of course if there are very large scale migrations then the people tend to take their entire cultural portfolio with them.
8. I dont believe that Sanskrit/Vedas came from elsewhere. Archeological evidence suggests these originated entirely in India.
9. People who made India their home (including most foreign migrants) adopted this common Indian civilizational matrix as theirs.
10. But the cultural software also includes many exported and imported modules. For instance, Sanskrit-Old Iranian seemed to influence each other; specific details are unclear. It is likely that Vedic ideas and practices migrated outwards to varying extents. Again scanty data available and more research needed. Indian traders brought back many things they learned overseas.
11. We should not look for either/or binary models. Rather I prefer an open architecture with complex flows taking place. Much of the world was this way until the Abrahamic religions closed human kind into closed mindedness and closed territories. Hence the way races/cultures are being studied today is reductionist and is under the influence of exclusivist thinking.

Rajiv Malhotra further adds:

1. To clarify misunderstanding on my twitter feed:
2. All Indians have a shared substratum since 1000s of years.
3. There is no separate Aryan/Dravidian entity. BI explains this.
4. Later on, many migrants entered, each bringing diverse genetic materials. These get integrated with the substratum to varying degrees. Some genetic material remains relatively segregated and forms new and separate jatis.
5. Hence the origin of certain groups that resemble people from X or Y continent. These are not old but rather new genes in India (i.e. few centuries and not thousands of years).
6. As a result of 3 & 4 there are certain "lower castes" that are incorrectly being blamed on Hinduism. Actually, Hinduism did not cause their problem. Hinduism in fact gave them a home in India, whereas they were brought as slaves by Arab/Turkish Muslims.

The purpose of this thread and my tweets is to explain Islamic slavery as a root cause of certain lower castes today. These communities are being falsely told that their ancestors were exploited by Aryans, brahmins, etc.

Next time someone argues in favor of the Aryan theory by citing examples of such jatis, I am supplying you with data to offer counter arguments on how such communities came about.

Response to Prof. Anant Rambachan's critique of Indra's Net

Readers of Rajiv Malhotra will know that Prof. Anant Rambachan has been named in Rajiv's latest book Indra's Net as being one of the leading proponents of the Neo-Hinduism thesis that has steadily gained ground in Western academia. Prof. Rambachan has recently been invited as a speaker representing Hindus at a forum for Hindu-Catholic dialogue. This set off a discussion within the forum. Forum members sent mails to the organizers of this dialogue asking them to clarify on what basis Prof. Rambachan is seen as representing all Hindus, especially when he espouses and propagates the deeply divisive and fragmenting theory of Neo-Hinduism. Those readers who do not understand the tern Neo-Hinduism are advised to read Indra's Net which is solely devoted to understanding this concept. A summary of the thesis can also be found here. For readers interested to know what Rajiv has to say about Prof. Rambachan in Indra's Net, the chapter on him from the book is uploaded here.

Prof. Rambachan decided finally to answer his critics and wrote an essay on Swarajya Mag to debunk Rajiv's "myths" about him as he calls them, that he claims Rajiv has concoted in the book Indra's Net. The essay can be found here. Following the publication of this essay, the forum has been alive with extremely meaningful and profound discussion points put forth by many learned forum members. This particular thread on the forum contains some extremely profound observations by various forum members.

Rajiv's response to Prof. Rambachan's essay is appearing in pieces on the forum as Rajiv is extremely busy and they are reproduced below in chronological order.

Response 1:

I am glad Rambachan has decided to respond to me. This is what we need. Not him and Vatican in interfaith propaganda, but INTERNAL resolution among Hindus as to our positions. 

So let me articulate specific issues/questions on which I request him to give clear, crisp responses as that would define his stance.

1. Is he willing to criticize his academic peers who support the neo-Hinduism thesis? Specifically, his PhD adviser Ursula King, Brian Pennington, Peter van der Veer, Pankaj Mishra. Richard King. If he wants to be 'nuanced' and cannot say it openly and directly for everyone to understand, that would be more gobbledygook and only continue suspicions: Which side is he on? Is he saying one thing to Hindus but another to the Western academy?
2. Is Hinduism as espoused by Swami Vivekananda any of the following: new and disconnected with Vedic origins, lacking unity across its various elements,  in conflict with Advaita Vedanta? If so, I have a problem. I would like to convince him to come out in a positive, concrete way and assert the following:
1. Vivekananda's Hinduism is a continuation of an old tradition, merely repackaged for modern times.
2. Its various elements comprise a unified system
3. It is consistent with Advaita (which we must note has undergone many interpretations/evolutions).
3. Did Vivekananda use Christian/Western influence for formulating any of the following: his notion of karma yoga, his notion of raja yoga as science, his notion of bhakti? If so, I have a problem. That is what Rambachan has maintained before. In his recent article, he hedges his position and does not come out clearly. I would like him to change to the following position, even though that would contradict his own prior works and create tension with his Western academic peers::
1. Karma yoga, raja yoga as science, bhakti - each of these is indigenous in our tradition, are not an adaptation of Christian/Western ideas.

The above is a core set of issues where we should start and then we can go further.

Each time he privately went and complained to persons X or Y about my critiques of neo-Hinduism, I wrote back saying that he must have a direct discussion with me. I have expressed this also to Rita Sherma when she called from DCF; I suggested that in some academic setting Rambachan and I can discuss where we stand on these matters. I have not heard back on this. Its much important to debate these issues than all the nonsense that the academy is obsessed with.

The issue of neo-Hinduism has caused serious confusion about who we are - in the mainstream media as well as academics. Many of our own folks are going about parroting such things. If neo-Hinduism is a valid thesis, it is not just Vivekananda that gets compromised, but all that followed after him, including: Sri Aurobindo, Ramakrishna Mission, Chinmaya Mission, Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, Art of Living, etc. In fact, the entire modern yoga movement where yoga-vedanta are unified is undermined.

Given his claim that he speaks FOR Hinduism, how could he have never in the past have stuck his neck out and EXPLICITLY REJECT neo-Hinduism? I am glad if I am forcing his hand to come out one way or the other. This has created bheda within the ranks of the academy studying Hinduism their own way.

Why is unwilling to write positively on the UNITY OF HINDUISM ACROSS ALL THESE VARIED SYSTEMS? If I can get him to do this, it would make my effort worthwhile. The price he would have to pay would be with the western academic cabal. Thats a choice he has to make. If one top player breaks ranks with the academic establishment it could spiral out of control for them. Wouldn't that be a game changer for us?

The more we debate this, the more tricky it becomes for him to take both sides, using nuance.

Response 2:

Frankly, I am pleasantly surprised by the excellent quality of many of the comments under Rambachan's article. Shows these are well read persons who think for themselves and apply rigor.

Many comments have cited in some detail the anti-Hindu writings of Ursula King, under whom Rambachan studied in UK and got his advanced degrees and academic credentials. Many have caught him on some utterly false or at least misleading statements he makes in the article.

Right now my priority is to meet my deadlines for my next book, The next 2 chapters I am doing are very tough and challenging. After that will be smooth sailing. But to do these on time is excruciating. 

So you have to be patient for my response to Rambachan. Meanwhile, you should use this opportunity to get involved, learn the issues, etc.

In any case, he evades the key issues of neo-Hinduism and merely wants to cover himself - WITHOUT in any way wanting to upset his academic cabal.

He also ignores that I am not the first to raise these objections about him. My book's chapter on him cites a long debate between him and Arvind Sharma years back, in which Sharma made some of the same points as me and I am citing his extensively. I also cite T.S. Rukmani, Prof of Hindu Studies at Concordia U, who feels the same as me. Then there are some Western scholars who my book cites. I am in good company on my positions. What I do for the first time is to bring together the whole gang of neo-hinduism. Previously scholars have not put them together as a group with a consistent theory they all echo.

Strangely, he whines that I am doing ad hominem attacks against him in the book - yet he cannot cite a single such incident. I always make it a point to send my book drafts to as many as a dozen reviewers before it goes to the publisher, and the specific purpose is for scholars who are new to the issues to make sure the tone is respectful, the material is coherent, etc. So I challenge Rambachan to cite where exactly my book has any ad hominem against him.

Also, he is only one of a whole group of scholars in the neo Hinduism club that I take on. Why did that group ask him to shoulder the responsibility to evangelize on their behalf? While he is upset that I pointed out his affiliations with the Church and other western bodies, he does not say what was incorrect in my statement.

I am glad this happened as it will fan the flames and more Hindus will read to understand the issues that are at stake.

Response 3:

I authorize people to post scans or copies of chapter 6 of Indra's Net which is specifically on Rambachan. Also the end notes for that chapter. You may also post chapter 10 where I reconcile Vedanta and Yoga - the neo-Hinduism camp finds them in mutual tension.

Pls post this material here and elsewhere - right now I am bogged down and unable to do this but I request others to do so for me.

Please point out in various forums:

1) End note 11 of chapter 6 is where I refer to Swami Dayananda Saraswati, since Rambachan refers to him. What i write there is misrepresented in Rambachan's article. I do not say what he alleges. I say that swamiji teaches unity of various elements of Hinduism and champions this through the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha.

2) He accuses me of ad hominem attacks. I read through chapter 6 again and did not see anything like that whatsoever. Yesterday, I showed it to a scholar at Princeton Univ who is uninvolved in religious studies and works elsewhere in the humanities. She has no knowledge of Hinduism or this issue. She said it is very well written and by no means ad hominem. Is Rambachan whining and claiming 'victimhood' status to divert attention from the real issues of neo-Hinduism? This is a common Church technique.

3) Focus on Ursula King, please:Rambachan is a product of two strong influences. One side is the influence of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, from whom he learned Vedanta philosophy. He then took this knowledge to England where he spent many years under the tutelage of Prof. Ursula King, a rabid anti-Hindu scholar of considerable influence. (Indra’s Net has a chapter summarizing some of her writings. I also met her once at Oxford where she attended a lecture I delivered back in the 1990s.) He did his advanced work under her and she was his PhD advisor. Under her supervision, he got his academic credentials. He cannot try to hide all that influence under the rug, as he tries to do in his public posturing before Hindu groups. When he wants to establish his credentials amongst Hindus, he speaks only of Swamiji as his teacher. But in his academic writings, he is very much part and parcel of an entirely different world, where his membership started decades back under the mentorship of Ursula King. His is a tale of two worlds. He is remarkably silent on his history and involvement in this second world.

Thank you for so many excellent comments people have posted at his Swarajya article. See this as a chance to delve deeper into a major issue all Hindus must become informed of - neo-Hinduism is like a cancer eating us from within.

Response 4 from Rajiv is a set of research papers by people who have argued against Prof. Rambachan's position on Hinduism. Rajiv has made available to the forum members papers from T.S Rukmani, Arvind Sharma, Jonathan Bader, Comans, Kundan Singh. This is for serious readers to understand where Rajiv has drawn his references from which he has also cited in Indra's Net.

Response 5:

A common ploy by Christian critics of Hinduism has been to accuse it of being world negating. They cite advaita texts to claim that the pragmatic dimension is irrelevant to Hindus because life is an illusion, anyway. Hence, they argue, the Christian missionaries must provide human rights, food, shelter, education, scientific progress and so forth, because the Hindus are not interested or capable to look after their own suffering lot.

This view has caused considerable harm to Hindus. We need more teachers to argue back that this is a false premise. I have been doing this arguing back, but I shall show that Shri Rambachan is unhappy over it.

I see the vyavharika (worldly realm of life) as being important and connected to the parkarthika (transcendental realm). I never dismiss one or the other. (My forthcoming book criticizes the interpretations of Sanskrit texts by Sheldon Pollock, another powerful scholar who is undermining our tradition while appearing to be reviving it. He, too, disconnects parmarthika and vyavharika, and then he can attack them apart separately. I argue strongly that this separation is a distortion.)

I consider various Hindu paths as vyavharika approaches to start wherever a given individual happens to be, and then to lead him/her towards parmarthika. Even though moksha is the final goal, most of us in this life start at a lower level of consciousness. This is why Hinduism has vyavharika practices such as dance, music, yoga, Ayurveda, yajna, karma, and so forth. These are user-friendly starting points. They are very important.

In Indra’s Net I point out that it is a bad strategy for our teachers to limit themselves to teaching moksha, and sidelining the vyavharika aspects. After all, Hinduism is the art of living and all aspects must be understood and practiced. This is why it is important to also teach artha-shastra, dharma-shastra, niti-shastra, and so forth. We should not limit the teachings to moksha-shastra, by which I mean a certain interpretation of Upanishads that is in vogue today.

The point I make is that 99% of the Hindus today are not going to attain moksha in this life, and most of the Hindus don’t even want to, or care to know about it. What about them? What does Hinduism do for them? We cannot, as Christians accuse us often, ignore these non-moksha dimensions. We cannot accede this ground of daily living to the Christian missionaries to take over. Hinduism must be taught broadly and not moksha-centric.

In this context, I wrote the following passage in Indra’s Net:

“But most Hindus are not pursuing moksha per se in any lineage. Their relationship with Hinduism is much more mundane and concerns legitimate pursuits (purusharthas) that are more pragmatic than moksha. I find it problematic to represent Hinduism in international forums that aim to undermine its legitimacy on the grounds of disputes among lineages over technical issues of moksha; issues that do not affect the practice of Hinduism by its vast majority of followers today.” (Indra’s Net, page 55)

Shri Rambachan twists my notion of presenting Hinduism in a broad-based manner in modern discourse. He makes it sound as if I am anti-moksha. He is being manipulative when he writes the following:

“By sidelining the centrality of mokṣa, we run the risk of reducing the meaning of Hinduism to group identity and a political agenda. If contemporary Hindus are not interested in the meaning of mokṣa, as Malhotra claims, this is no matter for complacency. It reflects a failure on the part of Hindu teachers and interpreters to properly articulate its enduring meaning in our contemporary context.” (Swarajya, April 30, 2015)

But I have never tried to sideline moksha. He is not doing proper purva-paksha of my work, because he is not supposed to misrepresent my position. Nor is he right in saying that we either get moksha or we get “a political agenda”. This is so typical of the binary dichotomies he learned in the Western academy.

My point in Indra’s Net is that to evaluate Swami Vivekananda’s unity of Hinduism, one must appreciate that he is helping Hindus across a vast spectrum, and not only the 1% pursuing moksha. These vyavharika dimensions are where Swamiji’s teachings of yoga, karma, bhakti and other paths come nicely together. Whether a given practice by itself brings moksha cannot be the sole criteria for evaluating it.

Once Shri Rambachan accepts this point, he would have no choice but to criticize the neo-Hinduism doctrine forcefully. That doctrine essentializes the entire tradition as world negating, and hence they accuse Swami Vivekananda of fabricating/manufacturing Hinduism. This is why they call it neo-Hinduism, i.e. something newly made up during British times. Shri Rambachan is once again evasive of neo-Hinduism by framing the issue as a binary moksha versus politics choice.

Response 6:

Shri Rambachan seeks to confuse readers by over-emphasizing one aspect of his personal life – where he claims to have taken sannyasa and become qualified as an Acharya. But he wants to deflect attention away from his other side, which is what I have mentioned, and which is the one relevant here. That other side is his academic career and the way it has been intertwined with his links to Church groups and Western institutions engaged in religious matters. The mere fact that he evades these is itself troubling. What is he trying to hide? Upon examining this second side one realizes that his frequent and long drawn out references to his life as a Hindu in Trinidad and in Swamiji’s ashram serve as diversion tactics. It is important to bring out the other side as that is where his academic writings are located.

Had he done his PhD in a traditional Hindu institution, it would have been a different matter. But given that his PhD advisor for many years and the most influential mentor in setting up his academic career is a well-known Christian theologian, he cannot simply hide that under the rug as he tries to do. I am referring to Ursula King, in UK.

He says that he does not explicitly mention Prof. King’s work except in two places. But absence and silence does not mean lack of influence. How could a young man from a poor country, a former British colony, go to live in UK and work for many years for his Master’s Degree and then his doctorate under a powerful Christian voice against Hinduism, and not get any influence from her and her cohorts? And why does Shri Rambachan want to extensively discuss one aspect of his autobiography but not another?

Why am I considered to be making ad hominem attacks just because I point out such influences upon him? After all, it is a standard analytical approach in the academy to discuss the socio-political influences upon a thinker whose work is being discussed? Shri Rambachan extensively discuss Swami Vivekananda’s works in the context of the various influences acting upon him. He exaggerates the Christian and Western influences on him. But when I discuss the Christian and Western influences on Shri Rambachan’s own life and career, he calls it an ad hominem attack. What is he wanting to hide here?

I am convinced that he wants to hide the links with the neo-Hinduism camp. He avoids discussing the doctrine of neo-Hinduism and refers to it as something that “Mr. Malhotra claims”. Forget me, what does he think of it? As a Hindu voice, surely he cannot simply ignore it. But he does ignore it in his entire work and even now in his latest articles.

In fact, he ought to be discussing the neo-Hinduism doctrine if he wants to write about my book, because that is the sole target of my book. It says so clearly. Yet Shri Rambachan is completely silent on it.

Is he helping his neo-Hinduism cohorts by deflecting attention towards himself – that he is this humble Hindu who is being ‘victimized’ by the like of me? Is this a way to get readers’ attention away from neo-Hinduism and towards his personal life? Who is pulling his strings to encourage him to do this? If we take him at face value, he is a good Hindu wanting to promote its positive qualities. In that case, he ought to have written a scathing criticism against the loud champions of neo-Hinduism. Instead of doing this, he is in alliance with them. This became clear and explicit when in 2012 at the American Academy of Religion annual conference in Chicago, he teamed up with Brian Pennington to lambast my earlier book, Being Different.

Indra’s Net names the major voices of neo-Hinduism, quotes them extensively to explain what their doctrine is, and how it is linked to Shri Rambachan’s main work. Besides the originators of the doctrine such as his mentor, Ursula King, Indra’s Net cited extensive quotes from several academic voices that are powerful Hinduphobics today. These include: Brian Pennington, Brian Hatcher, Gerald Larson, Sheldon Pollock, Jack Hawley, Romilla Thapar and Meera Nanda, among others. At the very least I had hoped that Shri Rambachan would denounce all those scholars in no uncertain terms. But he has not done that. Suspicion is called for in such circumstances.

These so far have been Rajiv's responses. This post will be updated as further responses from Rajiv come in.