http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2015/07/dear-andrew-nicholson-rajiv-malhotra.html
JUL
18
Gunsights of western indologists are not merely Rajiv M but Hindu parivaar. Unite, awake, arise, tasmad yudhyasva bharata...
https://www.change.org/p/publishers-of-rajiv-malhotra-s-books-do-not-yield-to-mafia-pressure-tactics-that-seek-to-compromise-intellectual-freedom
Dear Andrew Nicholson...
Rajiv Malhotra responds to Andrew Nicholson.
Rajiv Malhotra
Indian–American researcher, author, speaker. Current affairs, inter-civilization, science
Dear Andrew Nicholson,
I am glad you have entered the battlefield so we can get into some substantial matters. Since this is an extended article, I want to go about it systematically, starting with the following clarifications: I used your work with explicit references 30 times in Indra’s Net, hence there was no ill-intention. But I am not blindly obeying you, contrary to your experience with servile Indians; hence your angst that I am ‘distorting’ your ideas is unfounded. My writing relating to your work can be seen as twofold:
Where I cite your work.
Where it is my own perspectives.
You are entitled to attribution for ‘A’ but not for ‘B’.
Regarding ‘A’, I am prepared to clarify these attributions further where necessary. But, as we shall see below, I am going to actually remove many of the references to your work simply because you have borrowed Indian sources and called it your own original ideas. I am better off going to my tradition’s sources rather than via a westerner whose ego claims to have become the primary source. This Western hijacking of adhikara is what the elaborate Western defined, and controlled system of peer-reviews and academic gatekeepers is meant to achieve, i.e. turning knowledge into the control of western ‘experts’ and their Indian sepoys.
Regarding ‘B’, let me illustrate by using the very same example you cite as my ‘distortion’ of ‘your’ work. You wrote in your book that Vijnanabhikshu unified multiple paths into harmony. This is correct. That comes under ‘A’. But I add to this my own statement that Vivekananda does the same thing also. This is important to my thesis that Vivekananda built on top a long Indian tradition, and not by copying ideas from the West as claimed by the neo-Hinduism camp. This is ‘B’ – my idea. Your complaint is that by asserting this about Vivekananda, I am distorting you. You fail to distinguish between ‘A’ and ‘B’ because you assume that you are the new adhikari on the subject and anything in addition to or instead of your views amounts to a distortion. I see this as a blatant sign of colonialism.
You are carrying the white man’s burden to educate the Indians even about our own culture. Please note that Vijnanabhikshu is an important person in our heritage and there are numerous commentaries on his work. Yours is not any original account of him. You got this material from secondary sources. But by complying by the mechanical rules of ‘scholarship’ you got it into western peer-reviewed publications, and hence you claim to be the new adhikari. Furthermore, nor was Vijnanabhikshu the first to unify Hinduism. I have sources of the unification of various Hindu systems that go back much further in time and you do not seem to be aware of these. My point is that Vivekananda stands on the shoulders of many prior giants within our own tradition. I cited you to the extent it worked for me but did not stop there; I took it further than you have.
Sir Williams Jones started this claim to be the ‘new pandit’ in the late 1700s when he was a top official for the East India Company. Today that enterprise is dead in one sense, but has revived and reincarnated into new forms. You do not seem conscious that your position is not only arrogant but also puts in the parampara of Sir William Jones.
I re-examined your book lately and find too many ideas taken from Indian texts and experts that are cleverly reworded in fancy English. Let’s take a look at bhedabheda Vedanta. My teacher of this system has been Dr Satya Narayan Das, head of the Jiva Institute in Vrindavan, who spent considerable time with me while I was writing Being Different where I first explained my understanding. He is considered one of the foremost adhikaris today in this system, and adhikar in our tradition is not a matter of producing publications (with lots of quotation marks and obedience to other rules), but mainly requires actual experience of what is being said. Without the inner experience of the states of consciousness being discussed, it is at best secondary knowledge.
This experience is not a simple matter for western Indologists who spend hours going through other western interpretations and Sanskrit dictionaries. By complying with the procedural requirements of citations, etc. they suddenly claim to have become the new original and primary source. This system needs to be questioned, and I have written extensively about the syndrome I call the peer-review cartel. (You can read my debate on this a decade back on Rediff.com)
Therefore, I intend to delete most of the references to your book for bhedabheda, because it is clear that you lack the adhikara as per our system. I do wish to credit you in some respects but nowhere close to what you demand. It amazes me that there is nothing original in your explanation of bhedabheda, as your knowledge is obtained from reading Indian texts, western interpretations and sitting at the feet of Indian pandits to learn. Unfortunately, western Indology does not recognize what the pandit teaches you as his work, because it is oral and not written in a peer-reviewed (hence western supervised) publication. So the whole protocol of claiming something to belong to you as the author is a sort of technology of thievery. Fortunately, Indians have started claiming back their bio-heritage such as Ayurveda from such thievery that is being done by westerners claiming that Indians never filed patents as per western rules. It is time to also claim our intellectual heritage back.
Indian pandits know their materials by heart and it is orally transmitted, and they do not have the ego to claim authorship. They are very humble and hence get taken for a ride. They are duped by any ‘good cop’ from the west who comes in Indian dress to talk to them nicely and bamboozle them into believing that he is a friend of the tradition. Westerners can pick their brains freely, without which you would not be able to learn; but then you go back to the West and have the arrogance to call it yours. As per your Western protocol, you thank the pandit in some preface once, and feel that it suffices. But if you want that my 30 references to your work fall short then by the same token, please note that you, too, ought to be acknowledging your pandits and Indian textual sources in every single paragraph, if not every sentence.
Only that portion of your work which you feel gives truly original thoughts can become yours and make you its adhikari. If you would be kind enough to send us a list of what you consider original thoughts in your book, and that I have used these because they are not found anywhere else except in your work, then I would gladly bow to you and thank you profusely. But whatever portions (which is almost the entire book) are merely your rehashing the Indian materials in fancy English, over those I do not grant you the status of ‘ownership’.
Poetry and art are different than this. There, the originality is not in the substance but in the presentation. However, you are writing analytical works and there the originality would have to be established in the content and substance of the work, and not based on the ‘form’ of language gymnastics. Much of Western Indology is a factory to copy-paste and distort Indian materials, and process it through an industrial machinery called ‘academic knowledge production’ controlled by the Western institutions, journals, funding agencies, archives, gatekeepers, standards and rules, and so forth. Its requirements of idiom, the toolkit of theories to be used, language standards, etc., are such that 99% of the Indian traditional pandits (the true keepers of adhikara) are unable to participate.
My forthcoming book examines these mechanisms of exclusion in detail, which is why the war against it has started already. (This attack by you out of the blue comes 1.5 years after Indra’s Net, not as some remarkable coincidence, but because your peers are rattled at the thought that they are about to be exposed as the continuation of Sir William Jones.)
I challenge you to disclose all your Indian teachers – these are not ‘native informants’ as your system calls them but the true adhikaris of our heritage, and whose services you purchase to be able to do your work. What frightens your colleagues is that my book will educate our traditional pandits about your methods of exploitation. Let me frighten you even further: All my books are in the process of being translated into Sanskrit, specifically for the purpose of education of young pandits about the issues I raise. So my target reader is not folks like you, but our own pandits and others who claim this as their heritage and practice. I am especially interested in those who did not sell out to western sponsorship, foreign tours, etc. These will comprise my home team. I am only doing a humble service to inform them about the issues and remedies.
This is why more and more Indologists will be asked to come out of the woodwork and defend the old fortress. In the process they will also expose themselves. But that fortress is crumbling and my work merely accelerates the process of India once again becoming the center of Indology and not a subservient satellite of it.
Indian authorities should demand the return back to India of the 500,000 Sanskrit manuscripts that are lying outside India in various Western universities, archives, museums and private collections. These are our heritage just like old statues and should be returned since they were mostly taken by theft during colonial rule. I consider these more precious than the Kohinoor diamond. Right now, it is western Indologists like you get to define ‘critical editions’ of our texts and become the primary source and adhikari. This must end and I have been fighting this for 25 years. Now we finally some serious traction, thanks in part to people like you who attack and give me a chance to make my case more openly. Please note that what happens to me personally is irrelevant, and I am glad if attacks like this awaken more people.
My response to you is nothing personal, but serves to educate my own people. You are a glaring example of what I have called a ‘good cop’, i.e., one who goes about showing love/romance for the tradition. But at some time his true colors come out when he does what I have called a U-Turn. You would make an interesting case study of the U-Turn syndrome, for which we ought to examine where you got your materials from, and to what extent you failed to acknowledge Indian sources, both written and oral, with the same weight with which you expect me to do so.
To suit their agendas, westerners have pronounced theories like ‘nobody owns culture’ and ‘the author is dead’. Our naïve pandits are too innocent to know any of this, but I wish to inform them. The claim that nobody owns a culture makes it freely available to whosoever wants to do whatever they choose to do with it. Hence, Indian cultural capital is being digested right and left. The contradiction is that the west is ultra-protective about its ‘intellectual property’ and your obsession to squeeze more references/citations out of me illustrates this.
By declaring that the ‘author is dead’, the West says the contexts and intentions of the rishis are irrelevant. They are dead and nobody knows what they meant. So ‘we’ (the Western Indologists) must interpret Indian texts by bringing our own theories and lenses. This has been the basis for the Freudian psychoanalysis of Hinduism, and all other Western theories being applied. If the original author is dead, the material does not belong to anyone. It is public domain. So whoever has more funding and powerful machinery will determine how it is interpreted. However, the same ‘nobody owns culture’ principle does not apply to what you consider as your ‘property’. Indians need to wake up to this game.
They need to stop funding Western Indology and develop Indian Indology. The ‘make in India’ ideal should also be applied here. Expecting Indologists to change because you dole out money is like feeding a crocodile expecting him to become your friend. For the first 10 years of my work in this area, I gave away a substantial portion of my life savings in an unsuccessful attempt to fund and change the Indologists’ hearts. But they play the good/bad cop game with skill. I learned a great deal because I was acknowledged as the largest funder of western Indology at one time. Then I stopped and became their harshest critic. I have on file a lot of grant correspondence with Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, to name just a few. Naturally, they worry that I am exposing their secrets. One day I will get someone to organize all that material into a publication.
Before I close, I wish to address one of your points – that I lack the competence in Sanskrit to be able to do my work. I will address in a separate article my background and experience and how it fits the specific type of work I have focused on. But meanwhile let me inform you that, just as Western Indologists work in teams of collaborators consisting of specialists in different domains, so also I have been building my team of collaborators whose combined strength on Indology far exceeds anything you can possibly match. I bring a specialty they lack, and vice versa. But I am unable to get into further details at this time.
Welcome to the battlefield! I hope we can avoid personal acrimony and deal with the multiple issues I have raised above in a professional and mutually respectful manner. I give back as hard as I get. (Dr. Swamy’s slogan, being acknowledged without need for quotation marks…)
= Rajiv Malhotra
http://swarajyamag.com/culture/dear-andrew-nicholson/
Atanu Dey on Rajiv Malhotra – “May our Tribe increase”
ATANU DEY - JULY 18, 2015
[File Photo of Book Launch of Breaking India - Samvada.org]
An old legal aphorism advises young lawyers that “If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.” When you see someone furiously pounding the table, you’d be justified in thinking that he has taken that advice too seriously, and conclude that neither the facts nor the law are on his side.
The fact is that in any battle — of wits or muscle, figurative or real, defensive or offensive — one leads with the best device at one’s disposal. In desperate situations, clutching at straws may be the best one can do when one is in over one’s head and lifeboats are missing. That cliched image comes to mind seeing the recent charges of plagiarism against Shri Rajiv Malhotra.
For those who are not familiar with Malhotra, he’s the author of “Breaking India,” “Being Different”, and other books. The wiki notes that he’s an “Indian-American author and Hindu activist who, after a career in the computer and telecom industries, took early retirement in 1995 to found The Infinity Foundation. Through this organization Malhotra has promoted philanthropic and educational activities in the area of Hinduism studies. Malhotra has written prolifically in opposition to the academic study of Indian history and society, especially the study of Hinduism as it is conducted by scholars and university faculty, which he maintains denigrates the tradition and undermines the interests of India.”
I know Rajiv Malhotra and have deep respect for him. I am convinced that he is a serious seeker of knowledge and understanding. I know him sufficiently well to be absolutely certain of his integrity, his commitment to scholarship, his dedication to the cause of engaging “the other” in serious discussion, his principled challenge to all to engage in purva-paksha: “a tradition in dharma discourse [which involves] building a deep familiarity with the opponent’s point of view before criticizing it.”
Even to me, a lay reader and an outsider to his area of investigation, his competence is clear. But domain experts too attest to his diligence and expertise. I urge you to read some of the reviews of his book “Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism.” Quote:
In this substantial work Malhotra explores a variety of topics inherent to Indic culture and worldviews. He reflects on many aspects of the Hindu world. His goal is not only to dismantle misconceptions, but also to formulate a new paradigm for intercultural discourse. . . . Malhotra begins by referring to a number of his own personal encounters with Western scholars and individuals in conferences and elsewhere to let the reader know how, through means subtle and overt, Christianity and the West have been intruding into the sacredness and integrity of Indic culture. Not that many Indians are not aware of this, but this book gives it all raw and ruthless exposure. It unveils aspects of what it sees as Western hegemonic intercultural ruses that may not be as obvious to superficial observers. These revelations are sure to jolt both unwitting Indians who may have held Western civilization in high regard, as well as scheming Westerners who may feel awkward being caught.
So one may wonder, what accounts for the spurious charges of plagiarism leveled against him by his detractors? Paradoxically, the attempt to discredit Malhotra by silly accusations of plagiarism in essence gives indirect support to the fundamental solidity of his incisive arguments. His opponents have failed to counter his theses and in their desperation have had to resort to serious harassments. Having neither the facts nor the analytical skills to counter the theses, they are reduced to idiotically pounding the metaphorical table in their frustration. If charges of plagiarism is the best offensive weapon they have, they deserve pity and maybe even a little bit of sympathy.
To be quite frank, I have little time to waste on the trivialities that Malhotra’s opponents have published, such as the one by Sandip Roy at FirstPost on July 15th. “Not my monkey, not my circus” is my motto. Granted that the antics of the circular firing squad of flying attack monkeys (to borrow a phrase much favored by Prof Brad deLong) is an entertaining distraction but really, we do have real problems that need addressing. I will not waste time showing how vacuous their charge of plagiarism is. Others have done it. Malhotra has addressed charges, such as this one, “Rajiv Malhotra has a rejoinder to Andrew Nicholson” (July 18th) in NitiCentral. Besides there is no need to elevate their inane nonsense by actually quoting them.
So am I wasting time writing this? Not at all. My primary motivation is to express solidarity with the cause that Rajiv Malhotra has been tirelessly engaged in for decades. He is one among that rare breed of intellectuals who are willing to challenge the orthodoxy where it is substantially wrong; an orthodoxy that is slavishly and uncritically accepted by those whose minds are still colonized by a narrowly conceived Western narrative designed to denigrate and devalue Indian contribution to human knowledge and understanding. Malhotra provides the serious, intellectually sound, necessary corrective pushback to that worldview. Which naturally gores their precious goat. That partly explains their fury and their animosity towards Malhotra.
My secondary motive for writing this is my belief that public discussions should be accurate, honest, decent and intelligent. To oppose those with an agenda to poison the well of public discourse is a sacred duty to me. If we don’t speak out against what we perceive to be false and malicious, how will we discover what is true and valuable? I stand with Edmund Burke, the Irish statesman and philosopher, when he wrote in 1770, “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
The circular firing squad of flying attack monkeys has chosen Rajiv Malhotra as its target. We must note that the target is the man, not his theses, because the FAMs, having failed to counter his theses, have been reduced to firing specious charges of plagiarism at Malhotra. But indirectly, we are also targets of their random acts of senseless shootings. By not opposing them, we tacitly acquiesce to their implicit demand that we bow and obey their paymasters. (By using the word “paymasters” I grant them this much dignity that I don’t believe that they would so abjectly debase themselves without being paid for it.)
These charges against Malhotra is a distraction, a tiny scuffle in a minor battle that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the larger context of the civilizational war that we are forced to be in. I think I speak for a majority when I say that I’d like to be left alone, to live and to let live. But opposition to us and our civilizational ethos has been a historical reality. It is also historically true that those who oppressed India had the help of Indians. Indians are also involved in this petty attack against India, represented here by Malhotra. This batch of Indian flying attack monkeys will disband but there can be no doubt that new batches will form and new targets identified. That is as certain as the fact that ultimately we will prevail.
May Shri Rajiv Malhotra’s tribe increase. Or more accurately I should say may our tribe increase, since I too belong to it.
Originally published here on Deeshaa.org
http://www.niticentral.com/2015/07/18/atanu-dey-on-rajiv-malhotra-may-our-tribe-increase-324317.html
Links:
Andrew Nicholson, "Upset about Rajiv Malhotra’s plagiarism, even more upset about distortions of my work"
http://tinyurl.com/qbt8gbs
Sruthi Radhakrishnan, It doesn’t hurt to say sorry'
http://tinyurl.com/p7bag8k
http://scroll.in/article/740814/plagiarism-row-how-rajiv-malhotra-become-the-ayn-rand-of-internet-hindutva
Rajiv Malhotra on Hindu Intellectuals – Niti Exclusive
RAJIV MALHOTRA - JULY 15, 2015
“Is it safe to be a Hindu Intellectual?” asks Rajiv Malhotra
For nearly 20 years, after voluntarily retiring early from a successful business career, I’ve spent my time and energies exclusively to studying, documenting and critiquing Western and Christian scholarship on India’s religions and traditions. My work including books such as Invading the Sacred,Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism, Indra’s Net, and Breaking India have exposed in great detail the biases and conflicts of interest that colour and mar much of the scholarship that has emanated from America’s most prestigious universities and professors. I have pointed out at the way Indians are in awe of the white man telling them what they presumably did not know about themselves. I have pointed out the inferiority complexes many Indian so-called intellectuals suffer from.
From the very beginning of my activism, not surprisingly, I’ve invited the wrath of certain American academics and their Indian followers. From character assassination and name calling to the obstruction of my ideas and the slamming shut of doors, the price for talking back to power has been high for me personally. Thankfully, there are many Indians and Indian Americans who read my works and follow me on social media and discussion forums and are familiar with some of these battles. I frequently share the challenges and obstacles that I face not only to chronicle the cultural and social history of Hindus in America but also to let our community know, without any sugar coating, what we’re up against. The battles that I fight publicly are after all the battles that many of us wage privately in encounters that denigrate and heap contempt on our heritage. As I’ve taken on the Western academy or scrutinized their pet theories, I along with the many Indians watching, have realized that some people are given more freedom to speak than others.
There has been a vicious campaign against me and my writings in the cyber and media space. This started soon after I gave a talk recently at the 16thWorld Sanskrit Conference in Bangkok, about the key ideas in my forthcoming book ‘The Battle for Sanskrit’. It addresses some key disagreements: should Western assumptions in Sanskrit studies be the dominant paradigm for understanding our tradition? Are Indians simply becoming consumers rather than producers of discourse on their own tradition? Can Sanskrit be viewed as mainly a tool of oppression? Is Sanskrit also sacred rather than purely secular? And so on. The points certainly generated lot of interest and support from the traditional side. But there were a lot of disgruntled voices as well which felt threatened.
Many attempts have been made in recent years to stop my work under one allegation or another. The latest attack is a petition signed by 192 persons alleging that in my previous book, Indra’s Net, published one and a half year ago, there are 9 places where I ‘plagiarized’ from sources which I have not adequately cited – implying that I have appropriated ideas without due acknowledgment. Hence, the response demanded by them is for the publishers to drop my books and make an apology. The petition was written by one Richard Fox Young who teachers at a Christian seminary in New Jersey. It just happens to be in the same town where I live, but many Indians have been misled to believe that he is a professor at Princeton University which he is not.
I saw a strong rebuttal by some scholars who have actually read my book, and it has been used as a counter petition. While the petition attacking me got 192 signatures, <a href="https://www.change.org/p/