Missing Indian History Books

haiN, yeh kya baat hui? (english equivalent: judging the contents of the whole book by its cover flaps)

The drivel she writes in her book (read a few excerpts offered by Amazon), it is evident that she knows not what she writes. Pity the other "authors" quoting her.

huh?

True Temp bhai, one cant judge drivel by mere extracts on amazon. I HAVE read most of her "opus" and found it to be bilge by the bucketfulls....take my advice, read the extracts online and save yourself the money you would spend on amazon. :-)

Btw, Meenakshi - What I find hilarious is that most of the names on the list are "eminent" leftist ones who have provided the "official" account of Indian history since the mid-1960s. And few of them have any clue of Sanskrit, Pali, Tamil or any other classical language.

But then they did what most of the "elite" pulled under the Congress-raj post-independence which is to basically "hadpo" government money. As "historians" they hadpo-ed 12,000 rupees or so, while the Gandhi parivaar has managed to eat up billions of arts/history/culture money. :-)

I AM glad to see that the Shourie book survives on the net because when it came out and they tried to bury it as "saffronite" propaganda. Not one could of course counter the facts he had included so they just hoped that screaming would drown out the discussion.

"Untill the lions have their own historians, History of the hut will always glorify the hunters"

How true is this quotation. gangs of Mao Marx mulla and Missioneries always support this Hunters history.

They find hard to digest when Hunt lions try to present their point of view of the same event?

It will take 50 more years for truth to come out. Hopefully we'll see it happening in our own life time.

The basic issues are :

1. Aryans
2. Cast System
3. Vedas

Current generation of Indians have been fed with `Hunters' point bof view through history books, encyclopaedias and other media machine compoennts.

Internet has made it easy and cheap for non powerful groups also to present their point of view.

Lions the hunt also have strated writing their view of history and associates of Hunters are finding it hard to digest. Some might be getting loose motion also after seeing hard truth.

commonsense naturally rushes in where angels fear to tread!

1. It appears as if these professional historians were embezzling by not submitting a manuscript after they rec'd their grants. Research is not like making a chair or table. Sometimes there is no tangible product, sometimes there is. Most of the time, the product is simply research, ie reading, thinking, presenting ideas at conferences, and of course, also completing manuscripts. The amounts Shourie highlights are really miniscule, compared to the cost of books, attending conferences etc. He is making a mountain of a molehill.

2. The issue of somebody plagiarizing somebody else's work is of course is a serious one.

3. Most of the historians mentioned are indeed eminent historians, even though Shourie uses "eminence" sarcastically. One may not agree with the findings of a Romilla Thapar or Bipan Chandra, but they are professional historians, not ideologues like Shourie, who of course, is a historian.

4. Most people are upset at Romilla Thapar re: the AIT or Aryan Invasion Theory. Nothing about this issue can ever be conclusively proved or disproved. Science and social science does not work like this. One only comes up, based on very tentative evidence and interpretations, with some hypotheses that can be refuted by other counter evidence. It is logically impossible to prove AIT or to disprove it.

5. Those who want to disprove AIT are largely and rightly upset at the colonialist version of history: ie. to be crude about it: until the Europeans migrated to what is now India, there was nothing of any worth. They introduced this, that etc. The "nationalists" want to argue that everything that is now found in India, "grew from the soil" (to use Man Singh's expression). Since nobody has a time-lapse video camera to record everything that happened or did not happen, this issue will never be resolved nor can it be, since the evidence is necessarily not so clear cut and required interpretation and careful scrutiny. Either way, the only folks really in a position to argue this in a professional manner are historians and archaeologists, not professional ideologues such as Shourie.

6. Even if we don't agree with these eminent historians, they have advance our understanding by moving focus away from "great men, women, kings and queens" and lookin at regular people and how they transformed society.

7. Irfan Habib's study of the Mughal empire is a land-mark one. He was in trouble with the Mullahs as he showed how the Mughals exploited the peasantry by levying back-crushing taxes to build the empire. He was also in trouble with the Hindutvadis for showing that the mughal state exploited anyone they could and created alliances with anyone they could as long as they could extract resources to fuel their idiotic ambitions of grandeur. He did not give a shit as he is a professional historians and not supporter or detractor of either views. Historians of course, as humans, have their biases, but these are professional not, ideological or crassly political biases.

8. People complain about Thapar not knowing enough Sanskrit. But then, there is Wendy Doniger of the University of Chicago, who has been speaking Sanskrit as you and I speak Hindi and English, since she was a teenager. That however has not protected her from the wrath of the thekedaars and Hindutva-vadis. She has also been accused of denigrating India etc.

9. At the end of the day, these issues will continue to be contentious (stating the obvious, as usual!). I prefer not to take sides, but read all "historians" from all perspectives to make up my mind (ok, so-called mind!); I refuse to be swayed by (to state the non-obvious) by nationalist or colonialist biased passions!

10. Of course one can prove straightforward issues such as "is commonsense for real" or not. But when it comes to complex issues such as medieval or ancient history...if it were so simple, everyone would be researching it and teaching it. What these eminent historians have made possible (regardless of whether we agree or disagree with them!) is to move from plain, embarrassin tota maina kahanees to some professional histories.

11. Trust me Blokes, even Rs. 400,000 does not go very far when it comes to buying books, attending professional conferences etc., although of course, if the contracted stipulated a manuscript at the end, it should have been done. But these are really serious scholars Shourie is attacking. The money is peanuts compared to the rampant corruption at so many levels! Shourie as a minister could demand these accounts...if he could do this for every department, not just the ICHR, trust me you would have real stomach pains! This is not however to make excuses for these historians...

"Romilla Thapar or Bipan Chandra, but they are professional historians, not ideologues like Shourie, who of course, is a historian."

I of course meant that Shourie is NOT a historian, but an economist...still he should know what research entails...

Man Singh wrote:

""Untill the lions have their own historians, History of the hut will always glorify the hunters""

What about the history of the deer that are hunted by the lions :)

Meenakshi

Mr. Shourie is definitely one of the greats in writing! :), punctures fondly held myth's with great fun!. And since he writes so factually, nobody can challenge him. So what do you do? You simply ignore him. lol.

I remember one chap that I had a big debate with, few years ago. He was even a professor of mathematics, if I remember correctly. He was a fan of old man Arnold Toynbee. And came up with the most bizarre statements based upon a total misreading of what Toynbee actually wrote!. This is why the dalit movement has had some intellectual and coherence issues which they should resolve. Their problems are big enough without loading it with bad studies.

And then in my previous post about the Buddhists, you might have seen the reactions, it boiled down to, "sod the facts, I will believe what I want" :), lol.

BD,

Agree that Shourie is a great writer and polemicist...however, when it comes to complex issues in history, it is not that easy to get at the unadulterated facts, unless one is talking about when did so and so die etc. etc. The only way to get a reasonable shot at the facts is to look at the issue from many sides, even from ideologically opposed sides. Unfortunately in historical research, we are limited not just by sources but by interpretation of those sources too...no mean task! It would be nice if one could, dispute a particular fact conclusively, as was the case with Galileo at the leaning tower of Pisa...even that was an exception as it is very hard, even in the natural sciences, my own field...

Note: I am not defending the "eminent historians" against Shourie or vice versa. I'm just saying that it is important to move away from glib, overarching pronouncements when it comes to history or the social sciences...it is good to be tentative...such as...well, this appears to be true, until this truth is superseded by fresh evidence to the contrary...ideologues prefer to have a cut and dried final truth that they do not want to be challenged. Some eminent historians also behave in this fashion, although sooner or later, their pet theories are overturned...this is the essence of science, whether natural or social...any claims are always tentative...otherwise we are back to religious fundmentalism or "jo kahey diya vo kahey diya" (because I said so, isn't that enough??). Such a perspective allows for an open mind, within some parameters of course...

CS, if you can get hold of a small book, do so, its by EH Carr, What is History. It is required reading for all politics, history and many other arts fields here in the UK. It talks about what and how history is made up. We think of history as rather fixed, after reading Carr, I then determined, history is a story, not a series of facts. The story depends upon who the story teller is.

Now the reason why I am personally very upset with loads of eminent historians is that they buggered up my education. I was brought up on a strict diet of heavily sanitized information, and therefore have been torn away from my history, culture, religion, you name it. I am nearing 40 now and I am still learning about the history of my country. These eminent historians have lots to answer for, they have buggered up 2 possibly 3 generations of Indians.

This is the reason why Arun Shourie's writings are so disruptive, they open up, as you said, the other angle as well. And the reason why they are so disruptive is because the eminent historians fed us almost total pap. So when we read something like, "Ambedkar's life time total works, totalling 10k odd pages, does not show any sign that he wanted Indian independence", then you calibrate your thinking about that great man.

ah! well! :)

BD, well stated! I spent some time at JNU fighting off these very "eminent historians" and they are nothing more than hypocritical ideologues who have mucked about with grants, played little games and produced little of real worth. Give them a foreign grant and they will produce to the letter whatever the colonial enterprise will ask of them. Given a local grant, and they will hadpo it without a burp.

The saddest was to hear, a couple of years ago, from a very prominent UK academic that India lacked a "research" culture. I realised he was talking of precisely these "eminent" types.

CS: Couple of points:
1) I have no idea if Doniger speaks Sanskrit but given the bilge she comes up with about the Sanskrit texts, seems that she has a VERY poor idea about the language. Or she chooses to purposefully distort what the texts say for personal or ideological reasons. You choose which is worse.

2. Re your idea about how research doesn't have to produce anything...that may well be the case in the sciences. But in social sciences and humanities, a research grant is expected to produce results, even if it means reporting on the processes and how the proposed hypothesis has changed. That means "research" on the Mughal era may not produce the results you hoped, but it still generates information and understanding that is written up and published.

These "eminent" types have been happy to hadpo ICCR money and do jack all. And also they have ensured that their coterie - ideological and political - gets the funds while anyone else who doesn't agree is left out. And this has been going on since the 1960s!

3. Your contention of how "serious" these scholars are can be dismissed by a look at their publications and more importantly their bibliographies. Why else did the great historian of the Muslims in India (Irfan Habib) never look at records of the Mughal courts. Or did he like Doniger choose to ignore what he found there in favour of ideology? Why else were court records as well as municipal documents ignored when they presented facts that didn't match his "all peasants suffered regardless of religion" theme?

4. Do you know these "eminent" historians are SUCH "serious" scholars that they kill off PhD dissertations for political reasons? I know of three at JNU in the past decade alone: one on Fatehpur Sikri, another on taxation under Akbar's regime and a third on rise and fall of Buddhism in Manipur. And their reason was that these theses were "saffron" and promoted Hindu-Muslim enmity! Of course they never said so publicly (only in departmental meetings) but harangued the students to quit - one of them after six years of research and writing!

Oh on the good side, they are happy to steal the research students' work (MPhil/MA theses) and publish them under their own names! I had one friend (female) who saved her MA thesis on Sarnath by threatening to bludgeon one "serious scholar" with a baseball bat. :-) Other students - lacking her aggression (which was nicely blamed on the ABVP) - dont manage to save their work.

Two years at JNU provided me more tales about these "serious" scholars to safely put to the grave any respect I had for their work. They deserve to be publicly pilloried and stoned by their former and current students who have been screwed over!

Btw, I agree with BD on EH Carr - I use that as required reading for my undergraduates and am always amazed by the "before" and "after" difference.

Finally - apologies if the above sounds aggressive or nasty but I have been on the receiving end of these "eminent scholars" - one reason I realised that my research had to be done overseas until these #@*#s have retired and been replaced. It makes me angry when I produce work on India but live overseas, and only because of the stranglehold this damn coterie has on the university system back home.

Well said BD,now its the turn of the hindutvadis to bombard us with their crap and so far their attempts have been laughable .

Commonsense wrote

>>>Romilla Thapar or Bipan Chandra, but they are professional historians, not ideologues like Shourie, who of course, is a historian.>>>

Here we go again!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which world you live in man????? I guess you never get tired of propaganda .. true to your kind..

Above 2 mentioned are well known leftists..... but again what to expect from you....... only lies and half truths...

Commonsense wrote

>>> "Romilla Thapar or Bipan Chandra, but they are professional historians, not ideologues like Shourie, who of course, is a historian."<<<<<<

I guess it has become so predictable that commonsense will always make nonsense statements to defend his mentors and gurus.

It is well publicized fact that Bipan Chandra Sud mentioned by commonsense as "non-ideologues" gave up his last name because he claimed its against his ideology to use caste surname.

Only an idiot would argue against the fact that JNU is the hub of leftism and communism in India. And no one has to mention Bipan Chandra Sud's relationship with JNU.

Oh great prophet you forgot to mention all the members of your "non-ideologue" team

bipan chandra,
satish chandra,
romila thapar,
arjan dev
indira dev
Ifran Habib

ofcourse since commonsense has propagated that none of them are self proclaimed leftists as such we should bow to him and accept his version of truth and facts. Because according his cult, there is only one truth and that's theirs only!!

HAHAHA we should forgot what these clowns did in 2005 against NCF decisions. This Bipan Chandra Sud and his cronies started a agitation against NCF because they wanted NCERT to continue teaching books written only by Romila Thapar, Bipan Chandra, Arjun Dev and Satish Chandra only because according to this leftist team all other versions of history, fact and truth are biased and fabricated. Only his and his co-ideologues have the unkown powers of knowing and writing the truths and facts.

Romilla Thappar - no one needs to have to say anything of her leftists affliation

---------------

Commonsense wrote

>>>Most people are upset at Romilla Thapar re: the AIT or Aryan Invasion Theory.<<<<

Another idiotic statement. Now he is claiming that Romilla Thappar invented AIT theory only you are crediting her with AIT no one else does. I guess I do not know what Muller came up with!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-----------------------

Commonsense wrote

>>>> Even if we don't agree with these eminent historians, they have advance our understanding by moving focus away from "great men, women, kings and queens" and lookin at regular people and how they transformed society.<<<<

Sorry this leftist team

bipan chandra,
satish chandra,
romila thapar,
arjan dev
indira dev
Ifran Habib

Have done the biggest disfavor to nation and people of India especially Hindus by distorting facts. Ofcourse they moved history from what it is supposed to be. They simply made it a tool of leftist propaganda. They tried to shape and propagate Indian history into history of class (caste) struggle and regional divisions and trying to eradicating any common national traits in the region.

-----------------------------

Commonsense wrote

>>> Irfan Habib's study of the Mughal empire is a land-mark one. He was in trouble with the Mullahs as he showed how the Mughals exploited the peasantry by levying back-crushing taxes to build the empire.<<<<

HAHHAHa is that History or "communism"!!!!!!!!!!!! that's again class struggle !!!

But again they are all non-ideologues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And we should look at them as non-biased historians????

-------------------------

Commonsense wrote

>>> I prefer not to take sides,>>>>

Another contradiction you have already taken sides when you claimed your gurus and mentors to be "non-ideologue" and anyone who is not with them as biased and ideologue.

BD and Anamika (pointedly ignoring Gill!).

Trust me, I was about to mention E.H. Carr's little gem. What I wrote about historical research was of course derived from his invaluable book. To re-state what I said earlier:

1. The intention was not to defend any particular eminent historian, even though it comes across like that. Historians of course do not come from Mars, and as such have ideological biases, but these biases are generally derived from intellectual rather than crass political sources. The best way to counter these biases, is to produce another more plausible accounts, based once again on protocols that are scholarly, in the broad sense of the term.

2. Anamika, sorry to hear that your historical research career was cut short by the stranglehold of some "eminent" historians. Your best "revenge" of course is now to produce something that will shed a different angle on the issues in question. Academic gangsterism, as those of us who teach in universities well know, is not something peculiar to JNU, nor just the social or natural sciences. It is a sad part of the reality that comes with any organization where either fame (symbolic capital) or real capital (research money) is to be made. The history of all research is the history of one-upmanship and womanship, unfortunately. Unfortunately. Those of us who have nothing to do with it still manage to survive, despite all the temptations.

3. If we follow the E.H. Carr model (although Gill will jump on Carr too for being a "leftist" due to his being in Moscow during the Stalin period, and writing a favourable account of the Russian revolution - but that's what Gill will do anyway!) and provide alternative accounts, as serious researchers, not mere propagandists. Once again, there is no getting away from ideology, as much as there is no getting away from interpretive frameworks. But there is a difference between mere ideologues and historical research driven by the passion for research. Not always a very clear fine line to be sure, but nevertheless...

4. When I go back to what I wrote, I did say that I'm open not just to all interpretations but particularly to interpretations that challenge my preconceptions. This is how the struggle for tentative truths proceeds, and it is tentative since it is overturned by fresh evidence and interpretations of what we consider to be stable historical facts (Carr again! and a bit of Karl Popper _Conjectures and Refutations_). So at the end of the day, nobody has a monopoly on truth, neither the JNU historian nor any other historians. Apart from the obvious facts such as when was so and so born or died etc. etc. historical or any other research is then a constant struggle for making sense of whatever puzzles we may decide to take on...the same is the case with the natural sciences.

5. Anamika, as for Irfan Habib not using certain sources etc. very valid points. But the next step would be to use those sources and provide an alternative account. His work on the Mughal empire moved the narrative beyond the earlier focus on the character of rulers etc. that was the focus of an earlier generation of scholars such as Ishwari Prasad, Jadunath Sarkar, Irfan Habib's father Mohammad Habib etc. And these earlier generation of historians, Prashad and Sarkar, themselves moved the narrative forward from earlier historical and colonial narratives...at the end of the day isn't this what historical or any research all about? endless conjectures, marshalling of evidence, interpretations and refutations of existing accounts? (Karl Popper _Conjectures and Refutations_). Such that no position ever achieves the status of revealed truths that fundamentalists of all stripes, including the leftists of course, (perhaps especially them!) prefer to hold on to...this may seem like a recipe for confusion, but not quite! OK, in real life, in real universities of course we have to contend with academic gangsters who corner grants, journals, publishing houses etc...but then their hold is never permanent and nothing like a good kick-ass piece of work to demolish their pet hobby-horses! And so the enterprise proceeds...

6. As stated many times before, there may be a lot of politics riding on the AIT (valid or not) and many other contentious issues, but there are valid intellectual stakes too. To argue that once and for all, this particular theory whether AIT or not, will be enshrined and written in stone and others are simply bilge, is well, not a very scholarly way to approach the issue...we don't know yet, the jury is not still out, but will always be out! A destabilizing prospect for sure, but since then I am not for any fundmamentalism be it leftist, rightist or centrist, it welcome the constant stream of conjectures and refutations that aid rather than inhibit the invariably partial, incomplete understanding of the human history and societies. My role model here in addition to Carr is of course the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt. She gave it to the left and to the right, without the need to defend anyone ideological stripes except humanity. Needless to add, all interpretations, even conflicting ones and especially conflicting ones, add something to our struggle for making sense of it all...just commonsense to me!

Gill Bhai, I'm too tired and hung-over, to respond. But then, you have raised some rhetorical questions that need not really be addressed right? As in you have provided your own answers...and I don't disagree with you either...

Anamika,

Trust me on this but Wendy Doniger's fluency and understanding (ie. fluency not just as a parrot) in Sanskrit has never been doubted even by her critics. Of course it does not mean that whatever she may have to say is unadulterated truth, just because she is totally at home in Sanskrit. Surely she is not beyond criticism, because if she were she would not be a scholar but a prophet. Commonsense tells me that the best way to contest her interpretations is to pen a counter-narrative. As opposed to the rotten eggs and tomatoes that have been hurled at her at more than one meeting! (Anamika, I am not implying at all that you support such kinds of actions :)). I can't imagine her attacking other Sanskrit scholars with rotten tomatoes and eggs. While I understand the sensitivities involved, but the best way to get back is to criticize her position intellectually, as Edward Said criticised the Orientalists and as he is now criticised for over-doing his own critique of the Orientalists (by Chris Bayly, Aijaz Ahmad _In Theory_ and others). There is enough data, enough paper, or at least cyberspace for everyone's ideas!

Anamika wrote:

""Finally - apologies if the above sounds aggressive or nasty but I have been on the receiving end of these "eminent scholars" - one reason I realised that my research had to be done overseas until these #@*#s have retired and been replaced. It makes me angry when I produce work on India but live overseas, and only because of the stranglehold this damn coterie has on the university system back home.""

My turn to say, why apologize for nothing? Given the horrid experience you describe, quite understandable! Quite a great feeling after some feelings are let out! :)

Anamika:

""Two years at JNU provided me more tales about these "serious" scholars to safely put to the grave any respect I had for their work. They deserve to be publicly pilloried and stoned by their former and current students who have been screwed over!""

Ouch! Ouch! Their former and current students could do better than stoning, by writing something to challenge their claims. (I know you don't literally mean it!!:) Case in point, Irfan Habib's former student Muzaffar Alam, now at the U of Chicago. And so the process goes...Wendy Doniger can be countered by Arvind Sharma, Birks Professor of Religion at McGill University etc. etc.

CS, I do not have the personal experience of Anamika with these chaps, so she is my guruine in this case. As it seems, it is much worse than I thought.

But lets go back to your hypothesis about history moving forward in fits and starts. You mentioned Jadunath Sarkar, think about the publications from the Bhandrarkar institute in Pune, etc. etc. I never got to hear about any of that. Yes, conceptually I do agree, but fat lot of good that did to me. My parent's generation, my generation and to a large extent the next gen is also being educated on the same school text books which were written from that ideological perspective.

Counter-narratives do not help, my friend. We are talking about tens of millions of students moving from class to class, the inertia of rest amongst the hundreds and millions of Indians is huge. The tree has become weak but thankfully, as you said, given the internet, the power of these bunkus chaps is waning.

Sometimes I do agree that our education system as designed by these great scientists is aimed to turn out peons. Literally peons.

ana:

one comment and one query:

Oh on the good side, they are happy to steal the research students' work (MPhil/MA theses) and publish them under their own names! I had one friend (female) who saved her MA thesis on Sarnath by threatening to bludgeon one "serious scholar" with a baseball bat. :-) Other students - lacking her aggression (which was nicely blamed on the ABVP) - dont manage to save their work.

this is not unique to JNU - happens the world over - only the extent varies - (and also in most universities it is swept under)

the query: you singled out JNU and opted to leave...is JNU the ONLY university in all of india...could you not have moved to another univ. and continued?

And CS, i have to point out, like Meenakshi, I am finding it exceedingly difficult to get the other sides of the story. Very very difficult, the impact of decades and centuries of ignoring vernacular education, of ignoring domestic sciences, history, arts and life, they are all showing up, but not for long, it will happen, we will come to know more about our own lives.

T

my paper was also stolen, I am afraid, after giving it to a professor for his comments. And that too my first academic paper. I didnt hear about it after my submission, so I figured that I didnt get it. After an year or so, when I was in Manchester, I then found out that it had been published under that worthy gentleman's name.

And it is extremely difficult to move universities specially when you are doing a research degree. Actually anywhere in the world, unfortunately. If your supervisor is crap, then you are stuffed, moving is a worse option, and dropping is better. Which is why you have such a high drop out rate in research degrees.

BD,

Totally agree that it is not that easy to come up with counter histories when the usual outlets for publications are managed by certain well-entrenched gate-keepers. However with the internet etc. the situation is not totally all that bleak. In any field, and especially so in the humanities and the social sciences, there are many more avenues for the publication of articles/papers that go against the grain of academic orthodoxies. Contrary to all appearances, I am NOT defending any school of thought, but arguing that IN THEORY at least, the only recourse intellectuals have AS INTELLECTUALS is to provide either (1) a better argument or (2) a counter argument to existing academic orthodoxies. This is the rational, intellectual way to address controversial issues. It provides a framework for taking on board aspects of contradictory theories and moving forward, rather than being locked up in heremetically self-enclosed, self-referential non-dialogues. That is the way of religious fundamentalists, ideologues and demagogues, not scholars who have sincerely opted for the scholarship as a vocation.

I relly don't recall defending plagiarism nor the non-completion of manuscripts that were promised, nor the bullying of graduate students. If I said it happens not just in JNU but in most universities, I did not intend to condone it. Rather, it is a sociological truism for all organizations where reputations are at stake etc. Look, even Watson-Crick appropriated the work of Rosalind Franklin and did not give credit to her for the DNA "discovery". Another Nobel Laureate, David Baltimore was actually fired from Rockefeller University, for his role in a high-profile scientific fraud case, although he was never directly accused, and now he is the president of caltech. This is rampant in most universities, which is not to condone it. Much of this is discussed in the very interesting, entertaining and depressing:

Daniel Kevles _The Baltimore Case_

Marcel C. LaFollette, Stealing into Print: Fraud, Plagiarism, and Misconduct in Scientific Publishing( University of California Press; 1992)

Robert Bell, Impure Science: Fraud, Compromise, and Political Influence in Scientific Research (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 1992)

It is interesting BD that you mention the Bhandarkar Institute in Pune! It was vandalized in 2004, not by any scholar, much less an JNU historians, but by some group called the "Sambaji Brigade". Manuscripts beyond value were destroyed because somebody did not like a book on Shivaji by James Laine. Read all about it here:

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2102/stories/20040130003802800.htm


This is one of the problem when purely political ideologues seek to control everything, including intellectual production. To cut to the chase, if somebody is writing shoddy history, pillory him or her by writing better history. I know it is not that easy, but how do ad hominem attacks help in sustaining a genuinely intellectual community? This is the intellectual way. The other way is Sambaji Brigades' uconscionable attack on such a national treasure as the Bhandarkar Insitute of Oriental Studies. Of course, this is an extreme case, the attack on the Bhandarkar institute...but rotten eggs hitting Wendy Doniger while whe was talking at the University of London; mullahs instigating attacks on Irfan Habib for supposedly insulting Islam and Muslim rulers in his book (he was almost killed and certainly was not allowed to enter the university for over a year by these mullah gangsters...in the late 1970's), is surely not the way to go?! Surely there's enough space and resources for multiple views on any complex event...It does not make sense to me...

I "plagariaze" from a recent issue of the Times Literary Supplement (Oct. 12, 2007). About the 1857 uprising:

"The marxist historian saw it as a popular peasant revolt; the solider historian felt the whole thing rested on the unfair treatment of the sepoy; the political historian pointed to the changing role of the East India Company; the economic historian thought the changing balance of trade had a lot to do with it; the social historian was sure the reason lay in the Evangelical movement in Britain; the Muslim communalist hitorian saw in it the alienation of Muslims; the historian of technology saw it as the effects of modern inventions such as the railroad and the telegraph at work..."

Even if we read the only two eyewitness accounts of 1857: ie. Sita Ram's _From Sepoy to Subedar_ (1973) and Noah Chick's _Annals of the Indian Rebellion_ (Calcutta, 1857), we still will not get the whole truth from God's point of view. All of these accounts, sometimes contradictory, sometimes complementary however, will help in cobbling up a credible narrative, that will again be revised as new sources and interpretations are developed in the future...

On a lighter note: as the saying goes, "Even God cannot changed history; only historians can!!"

will respond in detail when have a moment but very quickly:

CS: AIT is the only widely accepted historical theory that is not backed by archeological, literary or ethnographic evidence but relies on a few colonial scholars noticing linguistic similarities.

Two - counter narratives are all very well but the issue is the imbalance of power. So reality is still that a Doniger will have greater power of discourse (rhetoric of hegemony at its best) than a historian in Aligarh or Jhansi. So its not enough to pen the counter-narrative (which I do btw) but to actually have it published and acknowledged which doesn't happen.

Btw - I dont know Doniger well enough but the two people I consider my gurus are both Sanskrit scholars and both have issues with her on specific points of language. So I reserve judgement.

Oh one point re counter-narratives: we know for example there exists a Palestinian "counter" narrative. But see what the balance of power does? :-)

Oh dont worry about my research career - I continued overseas and will one day go back to India anyway.

Temp: JNU unfortunately is the premier university in India for social sciences and certain other subjects. Its a little like being at Harvard when there is no other ivy...so moving to another university was a serious step down and very complicated given the way "eminent" academics work. But ek din aisa hoga....

Anamika,

As it is with any community, in virtual communities too, a certain amount of respect and trust develops. Since you have personally experienced the viciousness of the JNU "eminent historians" (and I don't for a moment doubt that you had a very bad experience) I will not question that. So, in the interest of continuing with a modicum and respect for each other, it's best that I do not discuss this. Seriously, I mean that sincerely! :) Mainly because this is discussion is rapidly moving into an area where we can respectfully agree to disagree, since I am confident that neither of us is a supporter of sectarianism, either in social or intellectual life! :)

(It just struck me that one of the biggest case of academic gangsterism occured when I was a grad student somewhere in Canada, way back in the medieval ages! Some physicist (or perhaps business studies person?) at Concordia U in Montreal, actually shot and killed three of his colleagues, because he claime they stole his paper and data and published it under their name. His last name was Fabrikant...he was sentenced to a few years in prison...for killing his colleagues, one of whom happened to be Indian...)

for those interested, here is the lowdown on academic gangsterism in universities...(concordia U faculty shooting his colleagues)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valery_Fabrikant

>>>Most people are upset at Romilla Thapar re: the AIT or Aryan Invasion Theory.<<<<

Another idiotic statement. Now he is claiming that Romilla Thappar invented AIT theory only you are crediting her with AIT no one else does. I guess I do not know what Muller came up with!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gill, even the "foolest of fools" aka commonsense knows that Thapar did not "invent" the AIT. She supports it. BTW, it is just a "theory" that can be disproven aka it is not a fact written in stone...anyway, enjoy your enjoyment...

Since I respect everyone, including even Gill, I have to say, that he is indulging in what philosophers call the "genetic fallacy" ie. dismissing a theory due to its presumably tainted origins (ie. left-wing, right-wing) without paying attention to the actual content of the argument. Also known in the philosophy of science as the distinction between "the context of discovery" and "the context of justification". Because a theory is of right-wing or left provenance, has no bearing to the claim it puts forward...otherwise we are back to ad hominem attacks...as in "ha, you are saying this because you are left wing" or vice-versa. Most of us are tempted to do this, but it is not of any serious significance in intellectual debates, although it does win converts in purely political, ideological, and debates that depend on demagoguery....

Anamika,

aadat sey majbur, so here goes, with all due respect of course!

Anamika:
""CS: AIT is the only widely accepted historical theory that is not backed by archeological, literary or ethnographic evidence but relies on a few colonial scholars noticing linguistic similarities."'

If this is the case, then it won't last long, especially when there is no evidence to back it up. Not too much to worry about then. It surely cannot be that it survives simply because a few colonial scholars are backing it up...

Anamika:

""Two - counter narratives are all very well but the issue is the imbalance of power. So reality is still that a Doniger will have greater power of discourse (rhetoric of hegemony at its best) than a historian in Aligarh or Jhansi. So its not enough to pen the counter-narrative (which I do btw) but to actually have it published and acknowledged which doesn't happen.""

Sure, imbalance of power makes a difference, but it is not everything in scholarly discourse! Srinivasa Ramanujam was just a clerk in Madras, but was recognized for his genius, spent a few miserable years in Cambridge, but his ideas still inspire a lot of basic and applied science. For medieval Indian history, Aligarh is better recognized than Harvard or Princeton. It is the Centre for Advanced Studies in medieval Indian history. No other department anywhere comes close to it. About Jhansi, I agree. But surely it is not simply a Foucauldian power/knoweldge axis. People do have independent means of judgment, and power does not by itself legitimize knowledge all the time, although it does happen sometimes...

Anamika:
""Btw - I dont know Doniger well enough but the two people I consider my gurus are both Sanskrit scholars and both have issues with her on specific points of language. So I reserve judgement.""

Trust me on this one! Sanskrit is almost her first language, in addition to Greek, Italian etc. But that in itself does not mean she is RIGHT!

Anamika:

""Oh one point re counter-narratives: we know for example there exists a Palestinian "counter" narrative. But see what the balance of power does? :-)""

Sure, I agree! But there are many palestinian counter-narrativeS, and many are not that different from Rabbi Kahane's narrative: ie murderous ethnic cleansing of the Jews...but it is a different cup of tea when one talks of scholarly versus purely political rants/narratives, although one cannot always separate the two...

Anamika:

""Temp: JNU unfortunately is the premier university in India for social sciences and certain other subjects. Its a little like being at Harvard when there is no other ivy...so moving to another university was a serious step down and very complicated given the way "eminent" academics work. But ek din aisa hoga....""

When one picks a university as a research destination, I am sure one looks at the faculty, what kind of research they do, what their ideological orienation is etc. If their interests and orientation does not fit with mine, I'd rather go to a less prestigious university so to speak, rather than slug it out with a Wendy Doniger at U of Chicago or Habib in Aligarh, when I know that I won't make any headway. Sad, but true! Not all the best scholars are at Harvard, and not all the scholars in Iowa or Jhansi are worthless! We have to decide who we want to work with and where they are...

CS: Interesting points but you're right that we must agree to disagree.

Ramanujam's reference is disingenuous at best as mathematics is not nearly as politicized a field as history, nor does it play a palpable political role in polity. Can you think of a "great" social scientist that was similarly plucked out of obscurity for challenging colonial hegemony?

Re: counter-narratives, I did not suggest that there is a SINGLE Palestinian one but rather there is an asymmetry of power. The same exists when it comes to research on India (and more so with other former colonies who are not able to challenge contemporary balance of hegemony. You seem to be willfully obfuscating the point which doesn't exactly extend the discussion but whatever...

AIT has been held up since Muller by an extra ordinary co-incidence of interests. If it were just a handful of 19th century colonial interests being served, the theory would die a quick death. But it continues to play its part in neo-imperialist (military/non-military) enterprises even today. And it helps to secure US/EU research grants if you work on proving AIT rather than refuting it.

Interestingly, the archeological evidence discovered in the past 60 years is ignored right across the board both in India and abroad for a range of political reasons. Or twisted beyond belief - my favourite is when amphoras found in Kerala were declared as proof of Greco-Roman "colonies."

Even Indian school books work off AIT absolutely uncritically. And we still talk of the rise and fall of a "Harappan" civilization rather than the Indo-Gangetic civilizations that seem to be spread far across the subcontinent.

Even on an Indian scale, the issue becomes very messy because our polity insists on a pseudo "secular" ideology where anything Hindu has long been derided in academic circles. It it not for nothing that the ASI excavations at Fatehpur Sikri have been stopped repeatedly by governments since independence. Even the NDA that restarted the excavations gave up under pressure from "secular" allies when ASI started finding evidence that great "secular" Akbar had been defacing Jain and Hindu statues there. And guess what? The "eminent" historians agreed with this deliberate suppression of history for political reasons.

I for one find that suppression makes things worse. Its time we actually looked at ourselves - and ALL periods - for all the good/bad/ugly. And that won't happen if we keep omitting stuff that is inconvenient or doesnt match our beliefs.

You obviously have great admiration for Habib while I find his work systematically omits and distorts history - for the rather "noble" aim of "secular India." What this basically means is that he is another ideologue rather than a historian (to use your dichotomy). So perhaps its best to leave this discussion now...

CS: Re your final point in 29, re how one chooses a university to work or study:.

Let me respond to what I felt is rather a self-righteous attitude on your part. Yes, I realise that much work on medieval Indian history is produced at Aligarh, but there is also a very clear political agenda on WHAT is produced, and that - whether you accept or like the fact or not - is determined by idiotic sectarian politics. It would be more accurate to say that Aligarh is a great centre of medieval Indian Muslim history rather than of medieval Indian one (just as other centres seem to focus on Maratha, Rajput, or "bhadralok" histories).

Moreover, for me as an unmarried Hindu woman, and in social/living terms, Aligarh is not equivalent to choosing Iowa or Wisconsin (which produces better work on India than Harvard) but more like picking Lahore university over Harvard!

That is ALSO a consideration in the places I choose to or can work/study. And that is another reason I had hoped JNU was a "better fit." Besides, its reputation as the premier institution of the country, of course.

Its exactly what I said to temp earlier: things are changing and this generation of "eminent" historians (and scholars from other disciplines) is slowly being pushed out. The next generation appears far more open- minded and capable of genuine research. So ek din aisa hoga...

As I said earlier, its rather obvious you have a blind spot for Habib and his ilk, so its best to agree to disagree and leave this discussion here....

Anamika,

I'd hate to question your personal experience at JNU. Of course anyone can understand how you must feel if you expected certain scholars to behave as scholars not as scheming gangsters. So, I will briefly respond to the other points in an uncharacteristically level-headed :) manner! Not that I am right, but because this is how converstations are carried forward. So, not with the intention of scoring points, that's not the spirit here:

""Ramanujam's reference is disingenuous at best as mathematics is not nearly as politicized a field as history, nor does it play a palpable political role in polity. Can you think of a "great" social scientist that was similarly plucked out of obscurity for challenging colonial hegemony?""

Point taken. Used Ramanujan as he is a spectacular example of a situation where his ideas not his location mattered. Other examples, albeit not so spectacular include: (these are all scholars who did not study abroad at all, but all home-grown, with Indian Phd's. Srinivas got a second PhD at Oxford, after a first one in India.). Also these scholars were not "picked up" by any sponsors, but made it due to their scholarship alone:

1. M. N. Srinivas, the "father" anthropology and sociology in India. A special chair was created for him at Oxford by the great British anthropologist A. R. Radcliffe-Brown. Srinivas got tired after a couple of years (as in what the fish am I doing here, teaching Indian anthroplogy), resigned, went back to found the Departments of Sociology in Barod and Delhi U. Major anthropologist not just of India but globally, who got all his education in India, except for a second PhD at Oxford. He was INVITED to do this Phd.

2. Andre Beteille. A student of M. N. Srinivas and possibly the greatest sociologist India has produced. Never studied abroad, not a single course, completely home-made, indigenous as they come! No shortage of invitations at all the premier universities in the world, including permanent appointments, but chose to stay in India and made his global mark from India, mostly Delhi U, plus a year initially at the Indian Statistical Institute. Currently the president/director of ICSSR.

3. Veen Das: another leading Indian anthropologist and sociologist who never studied abroad ever. Absolutely brilliant scholar. Did not go abroad. Also a student of M.N. Srinivas. BTW, totally at home in Sanskrit and half a dozen languages. Much of her career spent in Dehi with many visiting appointments at Harvard, U Penn, U Chicago etc. After retirement at Delhi U, appointed to a titled distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins U in Baltimore...

4. Sanjay Subrahmanyam: The Parveen Doshi Distinguished Professor of History, UCLA. Never got a single degree at any foreign university. A totally home-grown product. Speaks, reads and writes (in addition to Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and English of course) French, Portugese and Italian fluently. When he was only in his thirtees, was appointed full professor at CNRS Paris, then a special chair was created for him at Oxford. And then a special endowed professorship for him at UCLA. Probably one of the youngest full professors at Oxford when he was appointed. Did not get a single degree abroad.

5. Muzaffar Alam, Professor of History at U of Chicago: Another totally home-grown product (and taught at JNU as you would know, for thirty years, so one of those eminent historians!), not a single degree abroad. An ex-student of Irfan Habib; used the sources that Habib had neglected, to provide a different interpretation of the Mughal empire. He carried to historical converstation forward and now does so at U of Chicago. No foreign degrees, not a single course taken abroad...

I could go on and on...but the example of Srinivasa was not disingenous. I am more familiar with the natural sciences and dabble in the social sciences as a diversion.

Anamika wrote:

""AIT has been held up since Muller by an extra ordinary co-incidence of interests. If it were just a handful of 19th century colonial interests being served, the theory would die a quick death. But it continues to play its part in neo-imperialist (military/non-military) enterprises even today. And it helps to secure US/EU research grants if you work on proving AIT rather than refuting it.""

I do not see any american and european conspiracy at work here. If this is the case, there is nothing to stop our govt from providing excess funds to disprove it. The jury is stil out on it. In the end, it will be accepted or rejected, based on historical research...

Anamika:

""Even the NDA that restarted the excavations gave up under pressure from "secular" allies when ASI started finding evidence that great "secular" Akbar had been defacing Jain and Hindu statues there.""

Well, then the "government with a difference" has something to answer for! Shame on the eminent historians for obstructing the excavations...

Anamika:

""Let me respond to what I felt is rather a self-righteous attitude on your part. Yes, I realise that much work on medieval Indian history is produced at Aligarh, but there is also a very clear political agenda on WHAT is produced, and that - whether you accept or like the fact or not - is determined by idiotic sectarian politics. It would be more accurate to say that Aligarh is a great centre of medieval Indian Muslim history rather than of medieval Indian one (just as other centres seem to focus on Maratha, Rajput, or "bhadralok" histories).""

Sorry about the self-righteous attitude. Seriously, quite unintended. But I take issue with the characterization of the AMU history scholarly agenda being driven by "sectarian politics" or that it focuses on the "Muslim" period.

1. The department of history, and not just Habib, but many others such as Athar Ali, Shireen Moosvi, Ikhtidar Alam Khan, K.A. Nizami etc. etc. have actually moved away from a sectarian agenda by focusing on the nitty gritty of social life, peasant uprisings, technology, economic history etc. At least Habib as a self-confessed and advertized Marxist historian has tried to look at the larger social proceses at work and to shift attention from the iron-clad Hindu vs. Muslim divide.

2. Unfortunately, despite some variations, northern medieval India is dominated by the Mughal behemoth. Not too surprising that the focus of the historians is on it, and not on Maratha history. However, it is not exclusively so. Much intersting work on Rajasthan, Marwar etc. is being produced at AMU by these faculty members: Rashmi Upadhyaa, Manvendar Kumar Pundhir, B. L. Bhadani, Pushpa Prasad etc. The division of labour really is of course based on facility with the relevant languages. Without a knowledge of Persian and Arabic, no credible history of the Mughal empire is possible. Even the enemies of the history department of AMU have NEVER blamed it for pursuing a "Muslim communal" agenda. In fact, as pointed out earlier, they have been blamed for pursuing a Marxist, hence non-communal or non_Muslim agenda. This is why Habib and his colleagues are constantly pilloried by the mullahs.

As for my personal admiration for Habib: yes, he did lift the history of Mughal India from an obsession with kings and queens to real social history in his _Agrarian Systems of Mughal India_
by focussing on the production and crisis, rather than hagiographies and praise of the rulers. Was he totally successful? Nobody is. His blindspots were later rectified by Muzaffar Alam (a JNU eminent, now at U of Chicago) and by J. F. Richards at Duke University. So, instead of dismissing Habib because he did not use certain sources, others have used those sources, to refute him. Either way, he facilitated the progression of historical research.


Anamika wrote:

""Moreover, for me as an unmarried Hindu woman, and in social/living terms, Aligarh is not equivalent to choosing Iowa or Wisconsin (which produces better work on India than Harvard) but more like picking Lahore university over Harvard!""

Totally agree! With the caveat that AMU, despite its name, is not necessarily such a dangerous place for non-Muslim single women. Many students from Delhi, and non-Muslim ones, do go there, precisely to seek out the history department. Two names come to mind: Nalini Taneja rec'd her PhD from there and now teaches at DU. Parvati Menon, likewise, and now works for The Hindu magazine, Frontline. But your general point is well-taken. It is not that easy to pack and move, especially for a single woman in India. There are many other considerations, and not all of them are purely academic.

""That is ALSO a consideration in the places I choose to or can work/study. And that is another reason I had hoped JNU was a "better fit." Besides, its reputation as the premier institution of the country, of course. ""

True, true. However, without intending to be self-righteous, there is a slight contradiction here. If JNU is a premier university as you say, it would be due to the quality of its faculty. Since it is a new university, not like DU, Allahabad or Calcutt, ie. with a history, surely it became reputable, as most universities do, because of its faculty. And it is well known for its humanities and social sciences faculty. But then you say that their faculty produce bilge by the bucket-fuls! If it is premier research university then its faculty cannot be so bad in terms of research, although they can behave gangsters, like elsewhere.


Anamika:

""Habib while I find his work systematically omits and distorts history - for the rather "noble" aim of "secular India." What this basically means is that he is another ideologue rather than a historian (to use your dichotomy). So perhaps its best to leave this discussion now...""

Agreed that he is an ideologue for secularism. But he is a serious historian too, ie. he does do real research (albeit with limitations) and does not write only pamphlets (which he does write too). It is impossible to step out of ideologies, they are our lenses. But because he deploys a certain perspective does not make him a non-historian! There is no God's eye view of the world, either in the natural or the social sciences. (EH Carr again!) His blind-spots and there are many of course, have been fixed by J.F. Richards at Duke University and Muzaffar Alam. The latter will also necessarily have other blind spots and so the cycle goes...Show me a historian without an ideological framework and I will show you a hypocrite! Big difference between a mere ideologue/demagogue (Shourie for example, when it comes to history at least) and a historian who pursues an issue from a particular interpretive framework.

It would be nice and I mean that sincerely, if you could review Habib or any other historian you seriously disagree with and put the review on DC. Surely nobody is gatekeeping here and you would have seriously interested readers...I know, constraints of time, teaching etc. but brief critical reviews would move the conversation forward, intellectually....

Bhai Commonsense # 5

Perhaps you never read original article at all. You are trying to defend/justify the crimes of `eminent historians' by describing the `research methodlogy and probablity of not being able to find out something publishable'?

My freind Money was allotted to `write textbooks' and not do any reasearch. I am sure text books for kids are written based on current `state of the art' and not any new research.

Yes for aperson writing something on Ancient India and medival India need to be well versed in Sanskrit.

A person writing mediaval India need to be well versed in Turkish, Persian and Arabic for sure along with sanskrit.

Those who are not can never be `eminent' my freind.

I'll give you just one Example. Country name as Aryavarta has a well defined boundary in Bhavishya Puran (Bhaham parva sholak 7/56) which says " Aasamudratu vai poorvadasamudrutu pashchimat, tayorevattaram giryo aryavata vidurbudha'

which means the land mass surounded by ocean on east and west and covered by mountain on north(Humalayas) and south(Vindhyachala) is known as Arya varta.

Indians wrote about themselves who they are and where they originated and where their religion culture and other things developed very well. But associates of invaders always `ridiculed' everything done by their forfathers as `tota maina ki kahani'.

Bhagwat Puran also says that Bhakti originated from Dravid Desha, All items used in rituals of Yagna are South Indian origin and I gave list in some other post.

Simple commensense punctures the results of your `eminent historians' who are communist party card holeders my friend beffoling secular minded innocent Indians.

This negative attitide towards Indian sources reflects nothing but `inferiority complex' of some of our friends nothing more then than that. This attitide kills their capacity to see the truth.

# 5 Yes fro deers Lion is equally cruel. It is true my freind and Deer's point of view also should be given due weightage.

Bottom line is what's good for India my freind.

I'll go for a interpretation of History that benefits Indis, that makes it strong and united and integrated, the interpretation that gives me sense of belongingness to my motherland and an interpretation that boosts my self confidence that if my forfathers could be `Vishvaguru' then why not me?

I can be for sure. I have potential. We should use the positive interepreation of History while reading all points of views. That boosts morals of generations opposite to that negative interrpetation creats `inferirity complex' about India, its culture, religuions and civilisational values in generations and I can clearly see that in you.

Take seriously what your mom says my freind as she knows the best about you and not your neigbours or outsided? Trsu your mom who's you father more ten even DNA report as DNA test involves human involvement and succspetibe to error, change in sample and ...

Trust your Mom and start working hard to grow without wasting time in hearing the opinions of neighbours, invaders and looters of your house.

They all have vested interest. Your Mom is selfless of course and most trust worthy person on earth.

Anamika,

Ooops I forgot the mother of all home-grown intellectuals, or at least this is how he sees himself:

6. Ashis Nandy: total local product but global fame and cache. Not a scientist, but a social psychologist. Thinks of himself as the original anti-colonial thinker, perhaps even the only one.

7. Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan: totally homegrown, phd from bombay U. Distinguished Professor of Global Studies at New York University. Permanent position at George Washington U. Committed anti-Eurocentric scholar.

8. Dilip Chakrabarti, Archaeology, Cambridge U. Formerly at Delhi U.

The larger question is of course: why do we need sponsorship from Europe or America to be "recognized"? Should we be craving for it?

And now to come to Indian scholars in the humanities and social sciences who have been "contaminated" (I don't see it as such, but the votaries of indigeneity do) by just one foreign degree. As their affiliations amply signify, they are anything but marginal on the global intellectual scene: (and I am listing only those intellectuals who explicitly seek to dismantle Eurocentrism/Americo-centrism, if there is such a word!)

1. Gyan Prakash, History, Princeton U
2. Homi Bhabha, English, Harvard U
3. Partha Chatterjee, Politics, Columbia U
4. Gayatri Chakravarti Spivak, English, Columbia
5. Gauri Viswanathan, Formerly, Columbia, now somewhere in the UCalifornia system.
6. Arjun Appaduarai, U of Chicago much of his career, then Yale, now at New School as its Provost.
7. Dipesh Chakrabarti, U of Chicago
8. Leela Gandhi, U of Chicago
7. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse U, formerly Cornell.
8. Akhil Gupta, Anthropology, UCLA
9. Purnima Mankekar, Anthropology, UCLA
10. Raka Ray, Sociology, UC Berkeley
11. Arvind Rajagopal, New York University
12. Arvind Sharma, McGill U
13. Sudipta Kaviraj, University of London
14. Vasudha Dalmia, UC Berkeley
15. Atul Kohli, Politics, Princeton
16. Vinay Lal, History, UCLA
17. Vivek Chibber, Sociology, New York University

I could go on for another few hours...trust me I'm not googling here, but just going by memory. These are anything but marginal scholars at marginal locations....just my hyper-response to the response that my selection of Ramanuja was disingenous. In the natural sciences, of course C. V. Raman was also completely home-educated with no degrees from the global centres of excellence...

A simple Question to all readers?

A Book on history of India shoulbe be chaptered based on what which invader did in India or what Indians did to defend or develope their land?

Books written by `Eminent hsitorians' associated with Communist terrorists, have follwed first stretegy ie glorification of invaders.

name of Chapter is not on Guru Gobind Singh, it is after `Aurangjeb'. Guru Gobind Singh Ji has been described in two lines in that chapter.

Name of Chapter of should be in the name of `Shivaji' or `Mughals', it is in the name of Mughals.

name of Chapter should be in the name of `maharan Pratap' or `Akbar'?

There are simple things of commonsense very clearly telling the story of Indian history text books.

It has nothing to do with reasearch or different opinion of others. It is simply crookedness used in writing history books by `professional eminent historians'.

Indians please realise it earlier the better.

Lions have to write their own history otherwsie hunters will be glorified by associate of hunters.

Its for us if we are with Hunters or with lions?

It is interesting, the "strategy" adopted by some commentators here, by getting "personal" and throwing "names" around. The issue is NOT about name calling or who is "right" or "wrong", the issue is what goes for History in a land with over 300 million kids going to school.

I am all for researching Indian History if I can request online access to authentic documents that are only accessible to "emminent" historians.

I agree, we need more Indian writers in Indian History. Owing to the lack of money and a "traditional" education, we need access to information- what we can get to.

Indian History has been so busy denigrating "Hinduism" that "historians" have shut up that one huge corpus of cultural and literary clues we can get from the very practice and interpretation of "Hindu" texts and practices.

Modern researchers have built up a huge corpus of works citing earlier works, all leading to colonists like Muller, that we get back to "ground zero".

No one has bothered to ask why Indic writers who have been published by Indic Publishing houses like Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan have been excluded in being cited by "historians" on INDIA? How about Aurobindo? How about Vivekananda? How about Ramana Maharishi? How about Swami Chandrashekarendra Saraswathi? Hey, our 1st pesident Radhakrishnan has written some very interesting stuff on Hindu thought. Even he is rarely quoted.

Interestingly, when we look at the "innovations" made in the field of Education in India, the list of "Educators" who made a difference to the Indian education system will make an impressive list of philosophers and social reformers and serious freedom fighters! Some of the luminaries are Swami Dayanada Saraswati (DAV), Vivekanada (Ramakrishna Mission), Rabindranath Tagore (Shanthiniketan), Aurobindo (Maitri), J Krishnamoorti (Rishi Valley) etc.

The focus of education is not about fighting and saying "I am better than you", it is about seeing the world and relating to it through the "lens" of language, culture and philosophy that harms neither our own self-esteem, nor denigrate another's.

When a historian does just that, it is totally unacceptable and does not bespeak well of them or their "education". In that context, Romila Thapar's brahmin bashing is uncalled for and brings an imbalance in "describing" Ancient India or its culture. That includes the "description" of varnashrama dharma where we find the "untouchability" ISSUE. There is a big difference between fact and ISSUE.

Brahmins are made the villains of Ancient India. I would like to see records of who these bad guys were. How many they numbered, how they lived, how they "crushed" the "lower" "castes" under their feet IN ANCIENT INDIA etc.

I asked an American teacher whether she would like to teach about the Reformation of the Church when teaching the chapter on the Rise of Christianity which deals with the Birth of Christ.

Untouchability is an issue that still rises its ugly head in modern day India. We cannot say it existed in its current form in Ancient India. There is a HUGE difference in that statement. In my simplistic, non-researcher way, my exposure to Ancient Indian texts have no mention of untouchalibility. Yes, I do see the word Acchyuta, my divine Krishna who is untouched by the matters of the world!!

Meenakshi and Man Singh: very interesting rhetorical questions that come with built-in answers.

However, let me take a stab at a couple of points that Meenakshi raises:

Since you criticise me for naming names (I did it in reponse to a valid request from Anamika), but you yourself have mentioned a few. I will pick up on a couple of them:

The "eminent" philosopher S. Radhakrishnan, and the fact that nobody remembers them. Well, his son, one of the eminent JNU historians, Sarvepalli Gopal did write a great book about his father and his important ideas. Unfortunately S. Gopal is also in the cross-hairs of Shouries' attack on "eminent" historians from JNU.

You mention Rabindranath Tagore's Shantiniketan. Among the many other illustrious product of this incredible venture in alternative education, is Amartya Sen, also pilloried by the Hindutvadis.

If you are not into research but wish to use history to primarily glorify or denigrate this or that, there is little possibility of a conversation.

Man Singh: what can I say? Lions or hunters...not sure...I'm confused as usual.

Man Singh Bhai,

As I have said before, at the end of the day, all of us will join the world's truly fastest growing religion: Daoism or the worship of Dow Jones, the pre-eminent deity in NY and its various subsidiaries in all countries. A couple of generations later, we will totally fuck up the environment beyond belief, such that there will be no lions nor hunters left, nor any sectarian community to fight for. Not a happy ending for this kahanee, is it?

commonsense # 38

what you are saying again a concept of Dhrama where people are judged based on talent and character and not based on way of worship. I wish your utterance comes true soonest people think.

But during this transitional period from current Chaos to your dream organised cosmos, I want to live with dignity in this world. I do not interefere in anybody's way of life and I expect rest of the world to reciprocate the same.

usually that doesn'nt happen specially in current circumestances and therefore I have to defend myself and my values against any agression.

I want to glorify the concept of `live and let live' and side by side condemn the Agressors.

Those who belive in `kill and get killed' and `my way is only true way and hence I have divine right to interefere in others affairs' are simply not acceptable.

Let's make this planet a better place to live. This goal can be achived by promoting `live and let live' and demoting `kill and get kileld' or `my way is only true way' type of thinking.

Man Singh Bhai,

Maybe, but then, maybe not. As in what I'm saying is what I'm saying and what I'm not saying is what I am not saying and you are free to read anything into what I am saying or not saying since I am not into religion if you know what I am saying or not saying while I pretend not to know what I am saying or not saying in response to what you said about what you thought I was saying or not saying.

Commonsense wrote

>>>>that he is indulging in what philosophers call the "genetic fallacy" ie. dismissing a theory due to its presumably tainted origins (ie. left-wing, right-wing) without paying attention to the actual content of the argument.<<<<

No it is a wrong misconception you have. No one dismisses it because left supports it or right supports it etc. I and others dismiss it for similar reasons as Anamika mentioned "not backed by archeological, literary or ethnographic evidence but relies on a few colonial scholars" and sadly the colonial scholars who invented this theory were not trained Historians or Archeologists. They had their own reasons and agenda for propagating AIT.

Problem is with Lefts staunch support of AIT and presenting it as "fact" and "proven" history. As I mentioned in my previous post as what the leftist "gang" did in 2005 and they want to propagate this AIT as "fact" in NCERT. Why is left trying to brainwash young minds with "half-truths" as acceptable historical facts? They can always mention it as "disputed" or present "both" sides. But they will never do that!

In fact it is the leftists and its supporters who indulge in "genetic fallacy" (including you). In India anything that does not prescribe to established "leftist" domain of "thoughts and convictions" is always "labeled" as "Hinduvta". Why is that? Or it is that in last two decades everyone has become a "renegade" and has somehow been "taken over" by Hinduvta.

It is Indian NCERT books controlled by gang of leftists that are full of "fallacies". Another example of "fallacy" - NCERT books mentions "Arabic Numerals" are they really "Arabic"????? Arabs themselves have always called them as "Hindu" numerals. But why are leftists bent over to still propagate them as "Arabic". And anyone who questions it is "labeled" as "Hinduvta". Does that mean that Hinduvta has influenced the Arabs themselves???????

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/196109/zero.key.to.numbers.htm

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15921509.900.html

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/arabic/glossary.html

I guess who indulges in "genetic fallacies"!!!!!!!!!

PS another fallacy propagated by leftist gang in India is the Manusmriti as "Book of Hindu Law". What supporting historical or archeological proof are there to support it? But again "brain wash" young minds on "half-truths" using NCERT. When in fact as per Hindu system only shruti can be "law" and not "smriti". But I guess again it "genetic fallacy" on our part.

Bhai Commonsense , Gill has give a nice refernce. I am sure after reading this you will rethink about your calling ancinet Indian texts as `Tota maina ki kahani'.

Such ridiculing wordings were usually used by Communists in India for Indian civilisational things.

They used to say `India discovered Zero and hahahahaha remained at zero only' hahahaa.

I am sure a person like you with due intellectual ability will never be so shallow not to recognise the greatness of Indian knowledge relative to those timings(dun compare it with today's advanced knowledge).

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/196109/zero.key.to.numbers.htm

"Far to the east, however, as early as 200 B.C., Hindu scholars were working with nine oddly shaped symbols and a dot that eventually would bring order out of a world of mathematical chaos. The dot and nine symbols were the earliest known forerunners of the numbers 0, 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Comprised of only ten symbols and based on multiples of ten, the Hindu system was easily learned and easily used. It was the dot that made the system unique because with the dot came a written expression of the place system of numbers--the system that allows the nine basic numbers in different combinations to represent every possible quantity and assigns a different value to the nine numbers depending on their place or position in a series."

Gill Sahab,

Once again, you have provided answers to your own rhetorical questions. Thankless as this task surely is I will offer a straight-laced response with a straight face.

I don't recall saying that either AIT is true or it is not. I am not an archaeologist and neither are you. What I did say is that I will follow experts in this field rather than those who are primarily professional politicians and ideologues. While the origins of AIT lie in colonialist thinking, contemporary professional historians and archaeologists who are looking at this issue are not primarily in the business of denigrating us. It might have been so in the past, but the larger issues of patterns of migration, intermixing of cultures and institutions animate these archaeologists. And they will continue to debate and will keep coming up with tentative conclusions. Either way, my point was that it in connection with issues we are facing now, it matters little to me personally whether AIT is correct or not. And by the way, one of the early proponents of the "Out of India" (the counter to AIT) was also a European by the name of Frederich Schlegel. Either way, I don't recall accepting AIT as fact or disputing it. I did say the jury is still out and will be out for a long time.

As for the Indian numerals being labelled as "Arabic" numerals: this mistake has to do with the fact it was transmitted to the Europeans through Arab sources. Hence even your Microsft Word calls it Arabic numerals, which of course is a mistake.

The larger question is: so what if AIT theory is true or not. Does my sense of self depend on it? Mine doesn't and if yours is riding on such issues, please go ahead and do something about it. And if there is a majority BJP government next time, ie when they don't have the excuse of giving in to the compulsion of not upsetting secular political allies, they should just re-write all the textbooks any which way they want. As simple as that.

Would I lose sleep over it? No, because I am a hybrid mongrel who cares not whether my ancestors came from East Africa, Central Europe, grew from the soil of India itself or actually descended from Mars. Would it matter to me if the numerals were suddenly re-branded as "Indian"? Would I be able to calculate differently then? Would it boost my sense of self and ego, everytime I saw the term "Indian numerals"? Not at all. Duniya mey aur bhi gham hai is kind ki pride key seva, is my attitude. To go further, it is this kind of hurt pride and the attempt to restore it that is a cause of many problems in this world. Would India or the whole world would be paradise on earth if everyone had all the nationalist, ethnic, communal, linguistic, gendered whatever, pride? Maybe, but I doubt it. At the end of the day, we are still back to the many other urgent issues that confront us.

If it makes you happy: If your sense of self is indeed so brittle, devoid of any self-confidence, let me publicly accept your propositions. Indeed, I am happy to promote them too.

1. The AIT is garbage, always was and always will be. It should be scrapped right away. All those who promote it should be censored; the archaeologists who make claim to come up with so-called evidence, should be rounded up, and perhaps should even be buried in the very sites they have dug up. They have literally been digging their own graves; poetic justice indeed for the years of hoodwinking us and sapping our self-confidence and justifiable nationalist pride. Once this happens, our self-confidence will be evident, and nobody in the world will ever be able to question our capabilities or capacities. We will walk with our heads help up high with a gait never witnessed before.

2. The so-called Arabic numerals should be re-branded Indian numerals. All Indian software engineers should from now on boycott any product that uses so-called Arabic numerals. They should not support such products that deliberately and painfully denigrate our nationalist pride. Any engineer who works on any software is ipso facto a colonialist lackey and should be denounced without any further ado. A global internet based petition should be sent to Microsoft and other companies. Bill Gates should not be allowed into India until he relents and publicly acknowledges his devious intention of undermining our self-confidence, our very maryada and sanskriti. But until Bill Gates visits India, there is no reason why we should not put pressure on our local software companies by boycotting them until they use Indian numerals.


3. I agree that in India, everything was fine as long as cultures, people and religions that emerged from its own soil were there. Lions played with deer, snakes danced with mongooses, scorpions refused to stin, and bees voluntarily deposited honey at our doorsteps. We had invented all the laws of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics was right there in the Vedas and we had sent many men on the moon. There was no need for Sumanth and SIFFERS, as gender relations were perfect. There is no need to say that it was paradise on earth, since India was the true paradise that semitic religions used as the model for imagining paradise. Then came the invasions, first the Muslims, then the British. Confronted with an obvious superior civilization, they denigrated us since they were so jealous. Macaulay is only a minor example of it. Lackeys latched on to him for crumbs he and his ilk threw at us. The caste-system was invented by them to divide us etc. etc. etc. Even though colonialism is formally over, we have not shaken off the shackles of colonized mentalities. The prime suspects who continue to propagate this mentality are the leftist historians who propagate secularism to divide us, and the so-called intellectuals in so-called centres of excellence around the world, who humiliate us and taunt us by producing so-called intellectual discourses whose only purpose it is to keep us in mental servitude. They are helped by the internal enemies, those leftist historians who would do anything just to get a research grant, to travel abroad or simply to win approval from their former colonial masters. However, we are now aware of this fact, and this will not last too long. We cannot rest until we bring these culprits to heel and force historian Bipan Chandra to use his real name "Sud" that he discarded a long time ago in order to display his secular credentials and to heartlessly humiliate all the Suds.

I'm an ignoramus when it comes to history but, comm-sen, you made an almost paranthetical reference to archeologists, etc.

How abt evo biologists and geneticists (Cavalli Sforza, eg)? There's an archaeological record that could put speculation to rest. Does anyone do that in the subcontinent? Just curious. Have no political axes to grind.

Gill Sahab,

Now that you have gained one convert to your enlightened viewpoint, rest easy, sleep well. Don't be surprised if, when you wake up, it will be the same crap (I don't mean my posts, but maybe that too!!), different day...but I can keep emailing this to you everyday whenever you instant confidence inflation.

Repeat this to yourself everyday: Every idea, institution and thing that was ever invented or will ever be invented in the future is basically of Indian origin. We must take pre-emptive measures to ensure that this basic truth is never forgotten. I will work with you and Man Singh together to work out a fool-proof pre-emptive plan. In order to ensure that it is truly fool proof, I, as the only foolish person of this trio, will agree to simply listen and follow, rather than contribute any ideas.

And to anticipate your question: how do I get the time to dish out so much nonsense and bullshit. Well, you never asked, but since when has that stymied my verbal diarrhea? Well, I am on sabbatical this year, trying to master the Japanese language, so I have all the time in the world! By next year, I hope to complete a book that will decisively prove that the Japanese language too was invented in India. All of it, not just words like "dera" for temples or "namae" for our indigenous "naam". That ought to warm the cockles of your heart substantially further. If there's anything else I can do to constantly shore up your self-confidence and sense of self, please don't hesitate to let me know...it's free!

PH,

Oh sure Sforza at Stanford argues that such genetic markers cannot be used to prove the migration of peoples....I have posted stuff from him once, but on another topic ie. whether there are "real" races or not. His argument and a right one too, is of course that if one draws fine distinctions, people from towns a hundred miles away in Italy for example, and ostensibly Italian, will appear to be belong to "real races"...so genetic analysis cannot be used, according to him, to prove or disprove the migration into or out of India.

The wikipedia is not a fount of truth, far from it. But these two entries provide a reasonably good account (not true account, that's for prophets!) of the current research on both scenarios ie. migration into or out of India. As you or anyone can see, it is a minefield of theories, interpretations, tentative evidence etc. such that it is unlikely that one fine day somebody will conclusive say Ha, this did happen or did not happen. In any case, these archaelogists, populations biologists, physical anthropologists are pursuing these questions for a variety of intellectual reasons, as well as for reasons of getting more research grants, stronger careers etc. and not for denigrating or praising India. If you click on the links below, you can see that Cavalli Sforza's ideas are discussed too. So, there is an intellectual approach to this issue, which is also of course driven by ideological frameworks, but these frameworks are internal to the debates within the community of scholars. And of course there are rivalries, based on the usual factors: professional jealousies, pet theories, vindictiveness etc...the usual that all of us who work in universities are exposed to. Despite all these peroblems, I would rather listen to what they have to say, rather than political ideologues who have a lot resting on whether this theory is valid or not. For me, it really does not matter whether it is true or not! The link below and a brief relevant cut/paste quote about the politics of it all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_migration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_India_theory

From the wiki article above:

""Political debate
The debate over such a migration, and the accompanying influx of elements of Vedic religion from Central Asia is politically charged and hotly debated in India. Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) organizations, especially, remain opposed to the concept, for political and religious reasons. Outside India, the perceived political overtones of the theory are not pronounced, and it is discussed in the larger framework of Indo-Iranian and Indo-European expansion.""

PH:

The brief quote from Cavalli Sforza in the wiki article I was looking for:

""Cavalli-Sforza (2000) states that "archeology can verify the occurrence of migration only in exceptional cases".""

The larger point is that this "theory" cannot be conclusively proven or disproven once and for all. And therein lies the rub! There will always be data supporting alternative scenarios since no one actually filmed what happened. But after a time one can still argue, that based on what we know know, it appears that tentatively this is what most probably happened...until new data emerges or new frameworks for interepresting existing data emerge...basic Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn etc...Once again, the issue becomes: why is this theory inciting so much passion in India? Social Psychology rather than archaeology or population genetics is probably better equipped to take up this issue...

Bhai Commonsense # 46

Yaar mera naam ghusa diya to response dena hi padega.

`convert' and `sleep well' type of pills are not approriate for Indics. Such pills are suitable for those who are taught to get 5 converts by hooks of by crooks and a room is booked in the God's Brothel for them where Hurries are waiting for them.

Indics always shared the views and even converted out of their own understanding. They were convinmced with Budha and follwed Budha, they were convinced by Shankara and follwed him.

The open minded honest discussion tradition ~Shastrarth' was so rich and trustful that even wife of opponent was accepted as Judge(Shankara and Mandan Mishra Bhanumati Mishra as Judge).

Therefore Indics will not dance to your lollypop. Yes there might be some whose ideologies ensure then a key of room in heaven if they find converts.

You have every right to give your opinion and so do I or Gill.

Butter comes out after proper churning my friend. We are simply churning the curd and i am sure butter will come out.

nectors comes out after churning the ocean. various gems come of ocean while churning and Devas and asuras both enjoy them.

But poison also part of the process and nobdoy wants to take that. Neither Devas nor Asuras.

But still there are some people always who are reday to drink poison to make sure creation is not annihilated by that poison. Such people are known as `Shiva'.

We need Shiva for survival of humanity, society , nation or community or family. `Secular humanists' or `Dharmic' people as I call them are really Shiv and very much required for surviwal of humanity.

If you are secular humanist please be. But be honest. Not biased towards any way of worship.

In India `secular' has become equal to `anti Hindu' nowadays and have lost its meaning. Hope you will practise your `secular humanism' in true sense help humanity in making this planet a better place to live.

Good Luck.

Bhai Man Singh,

Mainey ghusaya aaapka naam, so I have to pay for it! Your concept of "God's Brothel" is a good one!! Now God (if he does exist, but who can prove that?) is in the business of running brothels? In the Japanese language, the term for prostitutes is most interesting: roughly, it tranlates into "selling spring" in English! From your message I take it that "God's Brothel" is not quite a brothel, as there is no cash transaction for the "Hurries" right? Is this because everything is done in "hurry" or there is as yet no inter-galactic unit of currency available? Just wondering :) I need to know before I meet my non-maker :)

Man Singh:

""Butter comes out after proper churning my friend. We are simply churning the curd and i am sure butter will come out.""

and butter chicken? manthan of the turd?

Man Singh:

""Butter comes out after proper churning my friend. We are simply churning the curd and i am sure butter will come out.""

and butter chicken? manthan of the turd?

Man Singh:

""Butter comes out after proper churning my friend. We are simply churning the curd and i am sure butter will come out.""

and butter chicken? manthan of the turd?

comm-sen,

Yeah, remember reading Sfroza on the troubles with using genetic to classify races/migration etc. Cudnt agree more on the variety of intellectual pursuits and their "collective" merit, but I simply wanted to know if anyone has used genetics to weigh in on the Indian history question.

Thanks for the links, will check them out!

History of course is a political hot button. Bertrand Russell nailed it (as he so often did on such things) when he said that the key to religion is nostalgia. A mere suggestion on my part to a South Indian friend that Indo-European languages may have branched from a common ancestry led him to accusing me of believing in "Aryan superiority".
Social psychology it is:)

CS- #37: You do this again! I write about historians using texts of "Radhakrishnan" etc. and you sidestep that and jump on S. Gopal, HIS SON, not connected to the actual issue at hand and Amarthya Sen and NOT RABINDRA NATH TAGORE. Please, focus. This side-stepping of issues is what has brought us to this point of no "discussion". It is time to clarify our rhetoric and actually move forwards in a focussed manner to see what can be done about having a textbook in History that is based on literary and historical documents as opposed to "theories" by various people.

eg. If you read Thapar's book, starting from page 16, she begins her Brahman bashing. This brahman bashing colors the rest of her text and her narrative wrt Ancient India. There are no substantiating evidence, from any indic or foreign accounts that substantiates such an "attack" on the "brahman orthodoxy", as she puts it. She is doing precisely what she charges the "brahman otrthodoxy" with- telling people what they should believe in!! Do you see through the rhetoric?

CS, I, by the way, did my MA from JNU and am well versed in the 'writing" and "thought of Marx and Engels. We had to study the Communist Manifesto and the nature of dialectics. For all the "equality" proposed by the "marxist" writers of history, I do not see a balanced dialectic rhetoric resulting. I find a very one-sided, colored view that has no basis on original texts.

This does not make me accept the "colored' views of any "Hindutva' writer of history either. All I am suggesting is, let us look into these "Hindu" texts and "Buddhist" texts and "Jain" texts and "Greek" texts and rather than "interpretting" them for the "masses" like a 'Brahman"(a la Thapar's Orthodoxy), we let the READER interpret what they choose to given all this information.

CS: you may not lose sleep over one theory over the other, unfortunately people are losing LIVES. It is imperative that we do proper research without getting sidetracked with all this rubbish. I dont care if the historian in charge is a card carrying membe r of the BJP or CPI or congress, as long as they get their academic research done in an ethical fashion with substantial evidence versus opinions. In a blog, it is fine, but on a TEXTBOOK?!!

Ah Meenakshi - glad to know another JNU sufferer is on the DC lists. I personally vote CHS as the worst of the departments. And congratulations on surviving with your mind intact. :-)

CS: I didn't ask you for a list of ALL Indian social scientists btw. Fortunately I am not on that list you provided...but rather one of Ramanujam's stature who could really forge their own path in CREATING ground-breaking work.

Lets take one example from your list - Spivak, who bases her entire "subaltern" theory on Marxist dialectic combined with French deconstruction. So fabulous she comes up with "can the subaltern speak" except she has to impose a western theoretical superstructure on to Indian social reality that ignores the area's social history, denies internal mobility and rejects the complex forms of power in terms of gender, class etc within the culture.

Of the names on the list, Ashis is one of the most innovative (along with Vinay Lal) but still ends up spending time refuting Freud's application to Indian psyche. And unfortunately, given his location in time/place/colonial education, he too ends up relying on western theory rather than breaking out of it (although his is definitely the voice of resistance).

Imagine what all he could have come up with if he weren't fighting off the imperial intellectual traditions that assume all western theory should be applied universally.

My point remains the same - these "eminent" historians have knowingly (and repeatedly) distorted history because their personal interests matched western hegemonic ones.

Moreover, they have shown pathetic standards of research and scholarship. And this without even going into their lack of personal integrity (and yes, I know Alam personally. What I think of him and his behaviour as a scholar and teacher would be all too correctly censored by this site).

I agree with Meenakshi that you are sidestepping the point which actually gets a bit tiresome, especially when it requires wading through numerous posts that seem to say very little (see there are benefits to brevity!). You may have the necessary time to devote to endless web discussions, unfortunately I dont.

Given the fact that you aren't willing to engage on the basic point - ie these "eminent" historians have shown little personal or scholarly integrity - any discussion gets tedious and useless.

Commonsense

True to your commie self you simply side-step the issues and indulge in irrelevance. Blokesblogin rightly pointed it out. You make every discussion that doesn't prescribe to your leftists dogma into "tabloid" by deviating it to leftist authors and ideologies. As if leftists intellectuals are "Gods" and they are the only ones who know the best for humanity. Their "virtue" is absolute!!! And we as "common people" should feel enlightened and motivated because some fetish leftist intellectual is trying to play "God". As such we should give up our heritage, history, tradition, culture and religion. Because these new fetish leftists Gods are going to show us the path and bring us out of the "clutches" of centuries old "evil" system and bring us all "salvation".

It seems that under the "pretext" of "commonsense" you are simply propagating "commiesense".

Best one... is you are negating opposition to AIT as "genetic fallacy". But at the same time you quote

>>>>Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) organizations, especially, remain opposed to the concept, for political and religious reasons<<<<<

Nice try!!!

And of course anyone who doesn't prescribe to your cult is Hinduvadi........... As I always say you have become so predicatable!!!!!!!!! Oh great prophet may peace be upon you!!!

Yaar Coomonsense To enter `God's Brothel' wheer 72 Hoories are waiting for you, you have to convert 5 people `only true path' or have to `blast yourself to become Shahid' in the path of God for a sure reservation of room in heaven.

But Indic traditions never instigate such `conversion' tactics. Therefore neither Gill nor me will `sleep well' after your declaration of your `conversion'.

Yes be a Humanist my freind. But be an honest humanist. However even a humanist should be able to differentiate between a `dacoit attacking the village' and `innocent villager beating back the dacoits'.

Rest will be the best my friend.

Meenakshi:

""All I am suggesting is, let us look into these "Hindu" texts and "Buddhist" texts and "Jain" texts and "Greek" texts and rather than "interpretting" them for the "masses" like a 'Brahman"(a la Thapar's Orthodoxy), we let the READER interpret what they choose to given all this information.""

Like Anamika, I also congratulate you on surviving JNU! I assume that you were not forced to stay there against your will, but your exit, well, better late than never...

As for your comment above: I assume you well know that scholars, even shoddy ones, take it as their prime task to "interpet" texts, not just download religious texts on "the masses". Even religous scholars and non-scholars cannot get away from interpretation. The only scholarly way to deal with interpretations that one finds problematic, is to re-interpret them differently, using the basic scholarly protocols, which may not be perefect, but that's all we have! Not to cut too fine a line nor to be self-righteous about this, but if you have an MA from a prestigious university like JNU that you voluntary chose to attend, I cannot see how you can disagree, even though I can see that you do.

The other scary alternatives to these scholarly approaches is of course to incite violence, destroy the sections of the Bhandarkar Oriental Library in Pune (because James Laine used its manuscripts to write an uncomplimentary book about Shivaji), to issue Fatwas against Rushdie, to try and kill Irfan Habib, physicaly bar him from his department, to throw rotten eggs at Wendy Doniger, to go beserk about cartoons about Mohammad and kill a few people in the process, to murder the Japanese translator of Rushdie at Tsukuba, to jail scholars in Iran, to kill philosophers such as Walter Benjamin, have a "campus watch" website that identifies and intimidates "academic villians" such as Vinay Lal and Edward Said (when he was alive) ad infinitum. I assume that since you, with a graduate degree from JNU do not condone this particular approach to settle scholarly disputes. I trust I am right at least on this point or perhaps I am as usual being smugly presumptious?

As for many lives being lost on account of scholarly debates of the validity or non-validity of the AIT, I and others would like some empirical data, with or without interpretation.

About S. Radhakrishnan and Tagore's Shantiniketan, you'd said that nobody talks about their accomplishment. My point was that S. Gopal did write a book about his father's accomplishment and Sen is a product of Tagore's venture...and both are villains for some group or the other. not quite sure how I side-stepped the issue.


Anamika:

Well, I really don't know what to say! That of course has never stopped me from mouthing off! Of course, I cannot point to someone who is just as creative as Ramanujam, since all humans are unique and he is dead. However, the list I provided is of people who are creative (not according to very elevated standards), anti-colonial, anti-Eurocentric and are NOT marginalized at dominant global universities. Whether Spivak is sufficiently anti-Eurocentric or not or whether Ashsis Nandy almost makes the bar but falters because ultimately he uses a "Western" framework once again due to his time/location/colonial education...It is regrettable that they do not measure up to a rigorous standard of anti-Eurocentrism that you demand, so we must leave it at that. But I for one cannot fault them for trying, despite their human limitations.

As for your remark: ""Fortunately I am not on that list you provided...""

Had I known of your work, I would have. This list was not intended as an insult to your scholarship. Nothing personal here. If you notice, except for two (Sharma and Kaviraj), all on my necessarily incomplete list work in the US, not Britain.


Re Muzaffar Alam, your remark: ""I know Alam personally. What I think of him and his behaviour as a scholar and teacher would be all too correctly censored by this site.""

The discussion here, or so I assumed, was about scholarship, not about behaviour, lifestyle or congeniality index. Since JNU academics do not have a monopoly on behaviour that does not meet your approval. I do not know him, have never met him, but I am sure others who know him have different opinions of him. Such is the nature of social life. Going by your account however, I would hve to assume he taught much of his life at JNU (that you described as a premier research university) and was then picked up by a marginal university, U of Chicago for example, primarily on account of his non-blue eyes and gross behaviour? Or did scholarship, beneath contempt by your standards play any role. I assume you have a similar evaluation of his collaborator Sanjay Subrahmanyam at UCLA? Sorry, some folks will simply never measure up to certain academic standards.

To cut to the chase, since you are an academic, I assume that despite our agreement about agreeing to disagree, you will surely disagree that any academic ought to be diappointed by this particular remark you made. But perhaps I am mistaken or smugly presumptious. Your regrettable remark, still gives me the nightmare.

""[the JNU scholars] They deserve to be publicly pilloried and stoned by their former and current students who have been screwed over!""

Can I assume that you do not support mob-rule and physical violence in the universties?

As for your final point: (about JNU historians)

""Moreover, they have shown pathetic standards of research and scholarship.""

The only scholarly approach to dealing with what you consider to be pathetic standards, is to criticise them, using better standards of research. Let's leave pillorying and "public stoning" of scholars to the players of a Talibanesque bent of mind...Just commonsense to me...

I regret that it has come to this, and that too, in a discussion with academics. Not to inflate my profession unduly, privy as I am to the seamier side of our existence, but I assumed a modicum of understanding what is entailed when one consciously chooses to embrace scholarship as a vocation and not as a means to get a paycheck...

Anamika:

""Spivak, who bases her entire "subaltern" theory on Marxist dialectic combined with French deconstruction. So fabulous she comes up with "can the subaltern speak" except she has to impose a western theoretical superstructure on to Indian social reality that ignores the area's social history, denies internal mobility and rejects the complex forms of power in terms of gender, class etc within the culture.""

Beyond belief, but we live and learn. Not that I'm defending Spivak here...but are you seriously suggesting that she ignores Indian social reality and ignores complex forms of power in terms of gender, class etc. within the culture? Quite obviously you are, but just double-checking...well, there are Indian social realities and there are Indian social realities. Some of us obviously feel that we have direct unmediated access to Indian realities (prophets and fundmentalists for example believe they have found Kants "the thing in itself") while lesser humans and academics have to make do with impoverished interpetive frameworks of various kinds...and they struggle, puzzle, stake a position, make an argument, go back to the drawing board, back and forth, while being influenced by so-called Indian realities and how they are mediated by global circuits of interpretive frameworks, ideas, ideologies, theories etc...

Commiesense

Summed everything it all for us... he wrote

>>>>academics have to make do with impoverished interpetive frameworks of various kinds...and they struggle, puzzle, stake a position, make an argument, go back to the drawing board, back and forth, while being influenced by so-called Indian realities and how they are mediated by global circuits of interpretive frameworks, ideas, ideologies, theories etc...<<<<

-------

And "commiesense" is justifying making "common Indians", "their "society" , tradition and religion an "Experimental Lab". Let the fetish Leftist "Gods" keep "destroying" and make mockery out of anything "India" to satisfy their intellectual "fetishness".

So what if it creates chaos in society, brings divisions and hatred. Main objective is of course to move the "masses" and bring about "peoples revolution".

But do not dare to "object" to this "evilness" because since they are all self proclaimed "Gods" they have all the rights to destabilize the established systems and push the masses towards chaos and uncertainty. Lets keep distorting facts.....

"commiesense" loves divided Indians into racial profiling .... But "struggle" compels him ignore the fact that -----

Max Mueller who, in 1853, introduced the word 'Arya' into the English language as referring a particular race and language.
However in 1888, when challenged by other eminent scholars and historians, Mueller could see that his reputation was in jeopardy and made the following statement, thus refuting his own theory -
"I have declared again and again that if I say Aryas, I mean neither blood nor bones, nor hair, nor skull; I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language...to me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar."
(Max Mueller, Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas, 1888, pg 120)


But of course its all a "puzzle" and "struggle". Because still a distinct "Aryan" race attacked India similar to "Spaniards" attacked and migrated to Americas

CS: That long a post and such few pertinent points. So here goes:

Thapar is feted by the west as the perfect authority on Buddhism without any knowledge of Pali, Sanskrit or Tamil to be able to read any of the original sources. Does that mean she is any good as a scholar? Well, if you go by her published work, its all bilge! And unsubstantiated to boot.

As for Alam - why dont you read his self-avowed "secular" works which very sweetly ignore vast amounts of information on the period when it is inconvenient. I for one dont believe that a systematically anti-Hindu is particularly secular but I am sure you will be happy to go on for a while explaining why I am wrong.

Alam was happy preventing research by one of his own students (who were looking at medieval India) into Fatehpur using ethnographic and literary evidence because it didn't precisely match the wonderful idea of Akbar that has been sold to us. As for why he has been picked by U Chicago - since when did a foreign university become a marker of quality for a scholar? Alan Dershovitz is at Harvard - does that make him a brilliant scholar?

And yes, that Alam student also used her "free will" that you expound above. She switched fields and got not only out of JNU but also history.

And that brings me to the extremely contemptuous attitude in your post above: yes WE CHOSE to go to JNU. As non-Delhi, non-upper class, non-urban citizens with very little idea of the way great institutions work, we looked at it the same way as people from Colorado look at Harvard - as the pinnacle of academic quality in the country. We were disappointed and many of us got out. Some of chose to follow our fields by moving abroad, others survived by changing courses completely, and still others by leaving academia completely.

The way to stay on was clear: sell out your academic integrity, produce what the professors wanted rather than what evidence stated, and play the game by letting them publish your academic work. From my perspective that is not "free will" at all.

Would you make a similar case for a Gazan: live with the imprisonments and checkpoint, let the Israelis steal your history, and collaborate with them as necessary? Yes I realise that the example provides an extreme simile but the principle remains the same.

Re: Spivak - do explain how her logic of the double silencing takes into account the multiple layers of power within the Indian social structures? She bases her arguments on western theory that is very apt for western european conditions (which give them birth) but hardly make sense in the Indian context. Do tell me how the Marxist dialectic applies to a social reality that has multiple interstices of power regarding economics/gender/religion/intellect etc.

Finally - I didn't go into academia for a pay check! I went into the profession for teaching and research and I found I could do neither unless I intellectually followed the "eminent" bs-ers like the ones mentioned earlier.

PS: Re: Laine, I agree that sacking libraries is a daft idea but its also an idea that has been nurtured by various similar (if less reported) purges of the past decades. There were less reported but equally violent acts of vandalism on "Leftist" campuses when Shourie's eminent historians came out.

Point isn't that one side or the other is guiltier but the fact that it has become acceptable to erase evidence based on narrow political agendas. This has been helped along with far too many "eminent" scholars helping along the burial of evidence with the excuse of "social harmony."

Habib/Alam and their ilk for example spent a lot of energy suppressing evidence of the multiple destructions campaigns of the Vishwanath temple in Banaras under various Delhi Muslim rulers. And this doesn't even go into smaller sites like Razia ki masjid.

My point is simple - Indian intelligentsia has different standards for different communities, and all that means is that there is no space for intellectual honesty in the process. Given our history of the past 200 years, there has been a systematic process of erasing/suppressing evidence regarding "Hindu" or pre-Islamic cultures, as well as non-Muslim populations post the arrival of Islam. And given the fact that India has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world - and with some very unique cultural elements - we should be looking at the processes honestly.

Not having done so (and yes, lets call a spade a spade, that does mean that from British times, the suppression of academic work regarding "Hindu" cultures) has led us to the idiotic place we are in today. And that hasn't helped the minorities, the academia, or MOST IMPORTANTLY (for me, at least) the nation.

Anamika and others who might be lurking,

I will swtich off all my buttons for self-righteousnes, unintended contempt, mischevious impishness, etc. Seriously :)

I do not diagree with you at all. And no, this is not a slimy disarming technique for distracting your attention (temporal's quip about Mark Twain comes to mind!) for the sake of scoring points a few minutes later! Sincerely, I feel that the disagreement I have is not with the substance of what you are saying, but about the targets on which our ire should be expended. Once again, if researchers are thoroughly compromised, as indeed some of them are, the only logical/rational alternative is to disrupt their enterprise by producing alternative knowledge. Not an easy process for sure, but the alternatives to it, wherever and whenever it happens, regardless of who instigates it (eg. vandalism, destroying manuscripts, killing of colleagues...yes, it does happen)is beyond scary. Vilification of academic researchers constructs an extremly slippery slope where mob-rule (jiski lathi uski knowledge will be imposed) becomes the norm. I doubt that we disagree on this. It is true that academics are pretty good at this "jiski laathi uski bhains" tactics, and they have to be exposed, but in an intellectual manner, following a minimal modicum of norms that allow for a rational evluation of competing claims for the status of legitimate knowledge that should be included in text-books. Since the academic field in India is too politically charged, let me use a couple of examples from the US and some hypothetical examples:

1. The Scopes Trials, Tennessee 1925. The law passed was that it was illegal to teach Darwin's theory of natural selection in any university or schools. Explicitly, it was illegal to teach "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible". Now this might appear to be evolutionary vs. creationist controversy, but the main point of the folks who brought this issue to court was that Darwinism was "anti-Christian". How dare the university researchers taunt us so by hurting our sensitivities. John Scopes was convicted of teaching anti-Christian ideas ie. evolutionism and fined 100 dollars, and banned from teaching it. Many trials later, with Darwinism entrenched in the higher education system, the Christians are still at it in the US. So how does one resolve this issue? One way would be, well, let them teach both theories. This is what the "creationists" want and have been testing the courts (Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska etc.) the last round in Dover, Pennsylvania. So how do we decide? In the universities it is no big deal since a couple of exceptions notwithstanding, there are no buyers for the so-called "intelligent design" theory. The issue is school textbooks. Well, in Dover, Penn recently the judge listened to all sides and he made the right decision (not because I agree with it:)) but his point was simple: you can teach whatever you like, but don't claim that creationism is science. The expert witnesses were university scientists and ironically enough famous sociologist and philosopher of science was actually an expert witness in favour of the "creationists". Yes, Darwinism has many loopholes that are constantly being plugged by the likes of Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould (until he passed away) and others. It might be a leaky ship as far as theories of evolution go, but the creationists do not even have a vessel. At the end of the day, creationist narratives can be taught and analyzed in departments of theology or religious studies but not in the dept. of life sciences.

2. My point? What gets in school textbooks and what does not, depends on the legitimacy a body of knowledge gains as it is evaluated by competent experts in the field. Not as it is evaluated by some fundamentalist Christians who claim their sensitivities are being hurt by the teaching of Darwinism to their kids. It is possible that there is something to so-called "intelligent design" theory, but so far, in terms of actual research, there is zilch. Yes, they have poked a lot of holes in evolutionary theory, and yes there are some "real" scientists behind it, such as Dembski etc. but they cannot expect their theories to be taught in schools, until they at least provide a modicum of tentative alternative explanations to Darwinism. I seriously do not believe, nor does any scientist I know of, that there is a conspiracy to deny the time of the day to the proponents of "creationism" or "intelligent design". In fact the case was quite the opposite when Darwin emerged on the scene, but despite all obstacles, a better explanation was eventually accepted as more evidence accumulated. It is still however a theory and could be overturned, but until...it is entirely possible, the way things are going in American politics, that departments of intelligent design may crop up in a decade or two....

3. So without naming any names or schools of thought in the Indian context: due to a number of constraints, organizational, financial and sheer negligence on the part of the state etc. the space for university based intellectual production is limited. What is available is no doubt dominated by a buddy system that promotes its own students who stay in line etc. While the behavioural aspect of this is to be of course condemned and and indeed, as an academic I am allergic to it, as I am to all sectarianisms, the intellectual aspect of it has to be promoted and not devalued. In other words, if any theory is being deliberately suppressed, denied, overlooked, it is usually just a matter of time, depite the academic gangsters around, that existing orthodoxies will be overturned, and probably even long forgotten a generation from now. However, the way to come to grips with this issue is to do more research by focussing on the blindspots and the wilful distortions, but within the framework of the generally accepted norms of research which I have admitted, is not fool-proof.

4. I sincerely believe that there is absolutely no overt, covert conspiracy to deny the deniers of AIT their day in the court of acadmic norms for the evaluation of their claims. Academic gangster may abound as they do, Eurocentric prejudices may abound as they do, shoddy research may pass off as good research while the really good academics may almost disappear (Khurana etc.), and this will always happen since we are talking of human not divine organizations and institutions. Thapar may be feted in Western academies but I don't believe that this has to do with the goal of denigrating India, Hinduism etc. The reasons for these are complex (networks, connections, etc. etc.) and cannot be reduced simply to an institutional academic conspiracy to promote her. She might be institutionally promoted or demoted but at the end of the day, her work can be judged by other competent experts in the field (Narendra Wagle for example, who has written the most widely recognized authoritative book on Buddhism). I really do not discern a monolithic "West" availing of any and every opportunity of denigrating us. There are enough talented scholars who can dispute her findings and who are beyond her influence. At the end of the day we will find, not the "truth" but a better approximation of it, only to be overturned, modified etc. as new evidence turns up. I repeat myself again (Temporal's 0+0=0)

5. Other issues: Spivak: Perhaps her work can be evaluated as a whole and not simply her "Can the Subaltern speak" essay. Not sidestepping the issue here as I personally do not like her work! However, I do not think that she should be dismissed. I also did not at all mean to imply that a position at Harvard or Columbia automatically implies the only test of academic rigour or validity. However, appointment at these intellectual powerhouses does imply a basic threshold without which one will not get there...not just these Ivy League places, but any coherent university that has some integrity. (sorry about personalizing this, I have sat at many search and appointment committees, as you may have too, and the process is very rigorous, with many hoops to jump). True Alan Dershowitz has become infamous now for promoting torture within limits, but his appointment at Harvard was not on these grounds. Same is the case with Michael Ignatieff and others etc...A certain minimum standard is obviously a pre-requisite, otherwise I would be teaching there too...Not to fall for the brand-name crap, but the fact is that with is incredible resources, financial and intellectual, it is indeed ranked the top for years now, unreliable as these rankings might well be...

The apparent contempt at Meenakshi for sticking with JNU was quite unintentional. I do understand the various non-academic exegiencies. Faculty at any research university will invariably do the kind of research they do and without this kind of autonomy, the very idea of a university is pointless. They do what they do, and graduate students choose to go to particular institutions because their specific research interests at least somewhat overlap with that of the faculty. (This is a general statement, and not about you, Meenakshi or JNU). Even if they get to diagree about the findings, at least research training is invaluable and can be used against the academics we may not agree with. While it may be regrettable that sometimes there are not many choices sometimes, faculty cannot be expected to cater to every ideological position, framework etc. based on fresh student demand each year...they will simply do what they do and I suppose that's precisely they chose to work in universities not in private labs, think-tanks where work is more overtly directed towards specific ends.

This may sound self-righteous but not intended to be. My buttons are still switched off, but they will be on again when I respond to Gill, with the help of some brew. My mischevious impishness is not something I have control over. Or maybe I have not found the buttons yet!

Best wishes (with no acrimony on my part. None whatsoever!)

Bhai Commonsense # 64

Baat to theek hai But your point is valid to reasearch only. So far as text books written by such leftist historians whose sole aim is to create a inferirity complex in citizens about their history (then only their will be chaos in society and communism grows in chaos only).

These text books full of half truths pollute the minds of impressionable kids of grade 6th to grade 12th.

This is the dangerous area. Every country presents its history textbooks for kids in the most positive way. I have seen such text books in Malaysia, UAE, UK, Canada and many other countries. Even their conflicts they present in a positive way and focus on what they learn from each other and how they grew togather after dark days of fighting. Invaders appologised, vicims compensated and both parties look ahead for future developement.

Opposite to it in Indian history text books crimes against humanity perptrated by invaders are supressed most of the time, victims are `demonised' and held responsible for all crimes committed on their neck and invaders are glorified.

Reasearch is altogather different issue and Text book writing is diferent.

It is a well known fact that Nehru and Communists sided with each other and that's why JNU became a bashion of marxists right in Delhi in full knowledge of nehru.

Those who work in govet departments know pretty well which professors are approved to go abroad in international conferences. Those who are allowed to travel and lecture around at government expeses become well known but not necessary `scholars'.

Don'nt you feel surprised how somebody can be an expert historians of Judaism without knowing hebrew language.

How somebody can be a great historian of Islam without knowing Arabic?

How a historian can be expert in ancinet India without knowing Sanskrit, Pali.

How a person can be expert in medival India without knowing Tukish persian and arabic.

But in reality most of communist historians are expert of this kind only. Government patronage made them `eminent'.

You have to chalaenge them at your own expenses though they are being funded by Government. How can an individual with 150000/yrs salary match the Trillian dollor strong government?

Yes some people try to do it. they are ridiculed, they are called `non eminent' or `branded as saffronite or communal' or whatever?

yes truth will prevail in the long run. But text books will do irreparable damage in this transition period.

How to minimise this damage by text books ?

Bhai Commonsense # 64

Baat to theek hai But your point is valid to reasearch only. So far as text books written by such leftist historians whose sole aim is to create a inferirity complex in citizens about their history (then only their will be chaos in society and communism grows in chaos only).

These text books full of half truths pollute the minds of impressionable kids of grade 6th to grade 12th.

This is the dangerous area. Every country presents its history textbooks for kids in the most positive way. I have seen such text books in Malaysia, UAE, UK, Canada and many other countries. Even their conflicts they present in a positive way and focus on what they learn from each other and how they grew togather after dark days of fighting. Invaders appologised, vicims compensated and both parties look ahead for future developement.

Opposite to it in Indian history text books crimes against humanity perptrated by invaders are supressed most of the time, victims are `demonised' and held responsible for all crimes committed on their neck and invaders are glorified.

Reasearch is altogather different issue and Text book writing is diferent.

It is a well known fact that Nehru and Communists sided with each other and that's why JNU became a bashion of marxists right in Delhi in full knowledge of nehru.

Those who work in govet departments know pretty well which professors are approved to go abroad in international conferences. Those who are allowed to travel and lecture around at government expeses become well known but not necessary `scholars'.

Don'nt you feel surprised how somebody can be an expert historians of Judaism without knowing hebrew language.

How somebody can be a great historian of Islam without knowing Arabic?

How a historian can be expert in ancinet India without knowing Sanskrit, Pali.

How a person can be expert in medival India without knowing Tukish persian and arabic.

But in reality most of communist historians are expert of this kind only. Government patronage made them `eminent'.

You have to chalaenge them at your own expenses though they are being funded by Government. How can an individual with 150000/yrs salary match the Trillian dollor strong government?

Yes some people try to do it. they are ridiculed, they are called `non eminent' or `branded as saffronite or communal' or whatever?

yes truth will prevail in the long run. But text books will do irreparable damage in this transition period.

How to minimise this damage by text books ?

The comments on this thread have really deviated from the subject matter of the original article.

It does make for interesting reading, but Commonsense I fear you are largely to blame here.

Mr. Shourie unlike the many "eminent historians" whose cause you have championed actually does investigative work rather than rehashing someone else's work. His finding of fraud that you denigrate is useful in showing how the public's money and trust is being misused. Whether or not the amounts are trivial is immaterial - would it make it any less a crime if you stole a rupee rather than a crore? In the Dover trial that you bring up one of the issues discussed was financial impropriety by the ID proponents on the Dover School Board.

In bringing up the Dover case, I fear that you are confusing apples and oranges. The Evolution/ Creationism battle is not over but in this case your assertion that "it is usually just a matter of time, ... that existing orthodoxies will be overturned" is indeed correct largely because it is in the realm of science. In the social sciences it may be harder to propose and disprove falsifiable theories, but I could be wrong. Common I think your "existing orthodoxies will be overturned" statement also contradicts your earlier assertion that "The larger point is that this "theory" cannot be conclusively proven or disproven once and for all."

Not everyone may agree that consistency is a virtue and perhaps it's too much to ask for it in a "professional historian."

Perhaps I am wrong in this but I get the sense that you are disparaging Shourie for questioning "professional historians." In the Dover case that you mention, the case revolved around laypersons on the school board, who were far from being academics, and the case against them was brought by the ACLU. The academics were called in later.

I don't want to selectively pick on you Commonsense. I think your heart is in the right place and you have certainly spent considerable effort in explaining your self in a civil and for the most part amusing manner. Have you thought of writing an article instead of or in addition to commenting?

By that way, can you imagine a Kitzmiller v. Dover situation in the AIT for example? Might make a good play! Common?

Neusinger wrote:

""The comments on this thread have really deviated from the subject matter of the original article.""

Agree, but this is not too uncommon!

""Mr. Shourie unlike the many "eminent historians" whose cause you have championed actually does investigative work rather than rehashing someone else's work. His finding of fraud that you denigrate is useful in showing how the public's money and trust is being misused. Whether or not the amounts are trivial is immaterial - would it make it any less a crime if you stole a rupee rather than a crore?""

True too! But I did say that I did not disagree with Arun Shourie's findings. Not delivering on a contract is a breach of trust, regardless of the amount. I did get ticked off by his sarcasm about "eminent" historians, hence the non-rational burst of gratuituos (sp?) self-righteousness...I have also seen him in action many times, debating mild-mannered academics, and he came across, not once, but a few times as a grandstanding bully. But I should not bring this up since this is not a "public text" so to speak...but since I did, I am trying to have my roti and eat it too. Point: he is a professional politician who has a bigger axe to grind. The eminent historians he criticised of course also had their axes...my axe is bigger than yours scenario. He went after them due to rituals of axe grinding prior to the point when he became a minister; later, he could and did of course have access to all the documents that he needed to show that these folks were apparently bilking the tax rupees of hardworking people. I don't dispute that. But it was an example of an ad hominem attack: because they did not deliver manuscripts they had promised, it does not ipso facto mean that whatever these historians did indeed write earlier, could be dismissed. Perhaps it could be dismissed, but it would have to be dismissed by other academic historians not by a professional polemicist and minister. Sorry, I'm too exhausted to put it any better! But thanks for pulling me up on this. It enables me to work thru my own confusions in a more clear-headed manner....

""In bringing up the Dover case, I fear that you are confusing apples and oranges. The Evolution/ Creationism battle is not over but in this case your assertion that "it is usually just a matter of time, ... that existing orthodoxies will be overturned" is indeed correct largely because it is in the realm of science. In the social sciences it may be harder to propose and disprove falsifiable theories, but I could be wrong. Common I think your "existing orthodoxies will be overturned" statement also contradicts your earlier assertion that "The larger point is that this "theory" cannot be conclusively proven or disproven once and for all."

I agree. That's why it's harder nut to crack. However, despite all that, it is still possible to provide largely plausible propositions, more tentative than in the natural sciences. An example would be: "capital punishment does not reduce murders in Texas". OK there are many caveats etc. but this statement is falsifiable within certain (social limits). Or, "even if welfare benefits are available, most people in Denmark still prefer to work". Or, "white collar crime (suite crime) is more harmful to society in general than street crime"...I realize that when it comes to history, it gets infinitely more complicated...but I'd still maintain that it's not simply a question of might makes right, even when it comes to historical narratives...but your point is well taken..

""Not everyone may agree that consistency is a virtue and perhaps it's too much to ask for it in a "professional historian."""

Sure! In fact it becomes a problem when one ignores data that are inconvenient for the initial hypothesis or tentative explanation...

""Perhaps I am wrong in this but I get the sense that you are disparaging Shourie for questioning "professional historians." In the Dover case that you mention, the case revolved around laypersons on the school board, who were far from being academics, and the case against them was brought by the ACLU. The academics were called in later.""

Sure, one has to have a healthy disrespect for experts and professionals. But the laypersons were being egged on by a whole variety of factors and professionals. As in, it did not materialize from thin air when suddenly some laypersons got agitated..there is a history there, and Michael Ruse's (Arkansas case)devastating testimony against the creationists nothwitstaning, it is a constant testing of wills....the case could not have been decided without experts testimony since the plaintiffs wanted this stuff to be taught in publicly funded schools...ironically, the expert for the creationist folks, Steve Fuller, gave enough ammunition to the judge to use it against him and the laypersons...so, is it science or not, becomes an issue, despite all the sticky problems around the "demarcation of science and non-science" issue.

""I don't want to selectively pick on you Commonsense.""

Not a problem at all even if you do. Contrary to my occasional facetious claims, I am not a budding prophet. Not yet at least! :) Nothing I believe or do not believe is forever!

""I think your heart is in the right place and you have certainly spent considerable effort in explaining your self in a civil and for the most part amusing manner. Have you thought of writing an article instead of or in addition to commenting? ""

It's much easier to let it rip than sit down than earnestly compose something!

""By that way, can you imagine a Kitzmiller v. Dover situation in the AIT for example? Might make a good play! Common?""

Wouldn't that me amazing! This sort of happens by proxy sometimes. For example the Bay area folks petition the school boards, the school boards ask the "experts" (Rajesh Kochhar from India, other historians in the universities around) and they just say something like, " are you kidding??". Then the bay area families claim their self-esteem is being hurt and needs to be shored up, otherwise the other white kids might think that India is zilch...and so the drama goes...Yes, I wish the bay area folks would bring in a real kick-ass lawsuit against the school boards for denigrating Indian and Indians or something like that. But they know they have little to show for their nautankis, apart from the likes of, Konraad Elst, Frawley, the Greek yoga teacher Kazanas (sp?) and the "Voice of India" publishers...etc. It would be a rational, legalistic way of getting alternatives to AIT inscribed in the textbooks and I do wish a court case could be brought on by the bay area residents whose sensitivities have been hurt...let's see...

Gill Sahab,

I'm a bit exhausted and running low on the brew. I simply cannot feed you tonight. Can I get a rain check, please?

Thanks!

Man Singh:

""It is a well known fact that Nehru and Communists sided with each other and that's why JNU became a bashion of marxists right in Delhi in full knowledge of nehru.""

Fact check 1: Nehru died in 1964; JNU founded in 1969.

Fact check 2: Nehru dismissed the first "communist" government ever elected in the world, in Kerala...(re: being close to the "communist". He was influenced by Fabian socialism, not communism. Different breeds...

""yes truth will prevail in the long run. But text books will do irreparable damage in this transition period.""

Unlikely as there will always be revisions, modifications, re-revisions..no final truth, not even in the natural sciences...

Still, this is no reason for me to dismiss your entire post. Just exhausted...and no brew at hand...

Anamika,

Allow me to revise what I wrote:

""5. Other issues: Spivak: Perhaps her work can be evaluated as a whole and not simply her "Can the Subaltern speak" essay. Not sidestepping the issue here as I personally do not like her work! However, I do not think that she should be dismissed.""

I know I'm using exhaustion as an excuse a tad too often today, but the point I was struggling to make was this: regardless of whether Spivak's analysis is convincing or not, she sees herself as a strident anti-Eurocentric scholar. Because she uses a Marxian framework laced overlaid with Derrida, does not by itself make her a "Western" theorist...Derrida himself always claimed to be doing nothing less than dismanting "Western hegemony" and indeed came from a marginal Algerian background...Spivak's brand of anti-Eurocentrism or anti-colonialism may not be enough for some, but she is sincere in her goal of contesting it...albeit in obfuscatory Spivak-speak... (So whether she is an important scholar or not is not as important as the fact that she explicitly sees herself as contesting Eurocentrism...).

Gill,

While you are doing a great job defending your self-esteem and mine, I think you should do more than more beyond being a cyber-tiger. Some suggestions:

1. In Singapore, the school-text books also promote the AIT theory. While the brave NRI's complain thru letter to the editor, the ministry of education responds with a blanket "we have consulted a lot of experts and this is what they agree on." Nothing workers. The local Indian singaporeans who have been there for a few generations really don't give a fish. Only our brave NRI's are justifiably worked up about it. Some of them even believe that this is an attempt to humiliate Indians and India, although this is probably not true. I suggest that you lead a small demonstration there. But remember that it's illegal for more than five individuals to engage in demonstration there. But with Man Singh and others helping you, you should be able to get five. However, if you cause too much disruption, the punishment is caning, on the bare behind, while the person on the receiving end bends... I assume however that to defend your views, you will be willing to bend for it? A bit like "bend it for anti-AIT". You will have red welts and stripes to show for your commitment to your beliefs...

2. The Germans are a cunning lot. Unlike England, France, Holland etc. they really did not have a formal empire. (Apart from a few areas in Africa that was short-lived). Instead of wasting resources and lives on physical colonization, they tried mental colonialism. Like a thousand Macaulays let loose. The biggest villain was, as you well know, Max Muller. But he wasn't the only one! Hegel ("India has no history", (Karl Marx (the things he said about us, unprintable here!). They stole our Swastika and then inverted it. They used it as symbol of Nazism just to give us a bad name; they pretended to be Aryans by stealing our name. Then they killed a lot Jews, Gypsies and gays and hoped that generation later people might thing that the Aryas or the Indians did it. The list is endless. All that is in the past however. Unfortunately, in Delhi there is the Max Mueller Bhavan, to taunt and haunt us. In other countries it's called the Goethe Institute, but not so in India. There are rumours that they have installed some radiators inside the library of Max Mueller Bhavan. It radiates AIT to anyone who enters. Not sure if these rumours are too, but with German techonology, who knows? I suggest we send Man Singh, an Inspection Engineer from IIT Roorkee, to investigate the matter. We should also petition the Indian Government to persuade the German consulate to change the name of Max Mueller Bhavan. It is a daily reminder to hardworking and not-so-hardworking Indians of the humiliations Max Mueller inflicted on us and continues to do so through thoroughly discredited theories. I will join you on this one. I'm too much of a coward to try the Singapore venture. Besides, I'm a new convert to your cause and being slimy as well, I intend to hedge my bets as against getting my ass whacked by painful rattan or "bent"

3. I am also drafting a petition to persuade Bipan Chandra to add Sud to his name. This is how it should be. It is not question of crappy, Western oriented individual human rights. How dare he chose any name he feel like? The pride and sentiments of an entire caste is at stake. They cannot be hurt or injured in any manner. The petition will be delivered to him by pure Suds. Half-suds will have only observer status. (Note: Suds not to be confused with soap bubbles). But I am not yet sure whether we should go ahead with this or not? I need your advice as to whether the Suds are proud of Prof. Bipan Chandra or ashamed of him? Can you please check? Otherwise it may spell double humiliation for them if he indeed reverts back to his original name.

I will think of more wortwhile projects...not much point in pointless cyber-tiger-gardi...

On point 1

Of course you approve of it after all it is similar to what you propagate through you commiesense a society with a "big sword" hanging overhead and "punishing" people if they do not act in a prescribed "control" manner.

Anyway very childish point, if AIT is taught as facts in India itself than whats the point if Singapore propagates it or anyone else. Like always tell you get out and spend some time with real people. Stop being a "koop mandook".


On point 2

Why are Muller, Marx or Germans etc villains? Real villains are the leftists and commies. Why are shifting your evils over to germans? Again typical deviation of a leftist fetish mind !!!!!!!!!

On point 3

Once again fetishness talking. You claimed Bipan Chandra does not prescribed to any ideology. Man it seems your own ego weaseling you out ............ that's sad... keep trying.....

Dear Gill Sahab,

koop mandook? don't understand! seriously! please translate or explain!

Gill Sahab:

""Why are Muller, Marx or Germans etc villains? Real villains are the leftists and commies""

Mmmm, just maybe, Marx was a communist (and a German to boot?)

Bhai Commonsense #75

its not one person or establishment.

they are 4 foreign gangs Mao Marx Macauley and Mulla


Max Muller was a Boden Professor. Paid by east India Company. You can guess the rest.

he started translating Indic texts with a motive to donwplay India. But somehow when he went depeer in Upnishads, his consciousness got enlightened and he decided to go by truth.

Max Mueller was a part of macauley gang in the beginning but switched the sides when he realised the truth.

# 70

Nehru associated with communists starting from 1947 itself. Prashanto mahalonobis' appointment in planning commisiion was the beginning. History, social scineces and cultural space was filled with left oriented people. It is immaterial if JNU was founded before or after death of nehru."Fact check 1: Nehru died in 1964; JNU founded in 1969." looses relevance. the only area communists missed was Archeological survey of India.

These commies tempered the evidences as `baburnama's' one page is missing that described time when babur was in Ayodhya and around. can you Imagine this? You can verify this fact at national Archives of India in new Delhi.


"Fact check 2: Nehru dismissed the first "communist""

such dramas are routine for politicians. their teeth for eating and showing are always different.

Nehru's closeness to USSR and economic policy of big public sectors was influenced by communist Russia and shame of history of 1962 Hindi chini bhai bhai nonsense tells the whole story.

Though gandhi always supproted and promised to india village based industry.

Nehru went againt his Godfather Gandhi on economic policy under communist influence only.

koop mandook means a mandook (frog) from a koop (well) it alludes to sanskrit lit. I remember a class in JNU when we were discussing epistolatory writing and I shared the story of Rukmini writing to Krishna and the prof kept insisting that Radha was Krishna's wife and there is no Rukmini!! And I kept insisting that Radha was no wife of Krishna, rather wife to someone else! This, is the tragedy of our "indian profs". I am grateful that she was not teaching Sanskrit lit!!

thanks Meenakshi! in Hindi of course, it would be "kuyen key mendhak". my sanskrit is 0+0= minus 0!

Neusinger:

""By that way, can you imagine a Kitzmiller v. Dover situation in the AIT for example? Might make a good play! Common?""

BTW, a federal court case is finally underway in re: the text-book issue in California. This issue might be settled once and for all! One of the key issues is the Aryan Migration debate in the text-books in California....

A link:

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/hpi/2007/9/1.shtml#1

and a link to all the news about the long-ranging controversy...

http://www.pluralism.org/news/index.php?xref=California+Textbook+Controversy&sort=DESC

plus, a wikipedia link: (note: neutrality of the views disputed!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californian_Hindu_textbook_controversy

Perhaps Temporal can write a play later...regardless of the outcome :) He is awesome with words! Coincidentally, the wikipedia entry makes an explict link to and comparison with the Dover case on evolutionism vs. "intelligent design"

Man Singh:

""they are 4 foreign gangs Mao Marx Macauley and Mulla""

Headquarters? Membership? Current leaderhip? There are unsubstantiated rumours that that the first three are dead. Not sure about the fourth..

Man Singh Bhai wrote:

""they are 4 foreign gangs Mao Marx Macauley and Mulla""

Bhai jee, kantey waali baat kahi, with a twist though! As in, all my heroes all have names that begin with M: Mandela, Marley (Bob, THE BEST!!), Mills (C. Wright Mills, a legendar American sociologist from Waco, Texas) and Muddy Waters (Blues Legend from Mississipi). I call them my 4 M's! M&M's. Good to know that you have a list of 4 M's too, except they are your villains. Dialectical thinking that Hegel borrowed form India (seriously, not being sarcastic!, the concept of zero, "permanence of change" etc.) from whom Marx borrowed it...we think alike, except from the opposite end of an exceedingly wide spectrum!!

Thanks for those links Common! I look forward to the play!

CS

>>>""Why are Muller, Marx or Germans etc villains? Real villains are the leftists and commies""

Mmmm, just maybe, Marx was a communist (and a German to boot?)<<<

How typical of you? Again one of leftist commie traits!!!!

Sir Marx did not write a resolve looking at or for Indian society. The ground realities and issues facing his society and world of the time were irrelevant to Indian ground realities. Only a fetish and moronic mind would try to impose resolves meant for western society (whose traditional society was shattered by Industrial revolution and was exploited by church for centuries) on a society that had no concept of Industrial revolution at the time and in fact the underlining forces, ethos and virtues of that society were always traditional and religious.

Similar to you it is the fetish Indians (lefitists) who have made them their "gods" and "prophets" and their words as the "ultimate" and "universal" truth. It is amusing to find your cult members naming their kids after tyrants like Lenin, Stalin etc.....and you ofcourse calling yourself "commiesense".....

Villains are the Indian leftists and commies. Marx etc wrote for European societies and as such let their own people judge them. Don't bring irrelevant "resolves" to Indian society.

Only a villain would refuse to learn from History. At least do a favor for Indian society and learn from Gandhis experiment at least. A honest approach towards Indian society but based on western resolves-

Non-Violence based on Leo Tolstoy works
Civil Disobedience based on Henry David Thoreau works
Vegetarianism based on Henry Stephens Salt works
Social ecnomics and communes based on John Ruskin

Unfortunately Gandhi honestly tried implementation with Indian outer flavor but he failed and resulted in division and ethnic cleansing. And social and encomic ills continue to this day despite trying to implement resolves based on western realities and thoughts. But I guess some God like people still believe that their "prophets" in west have resolves for Indian Society. This despite the fact that majority of their "prophets" ideologies have failed and most are even extinct in the west itself.

One reason could be the bankruptcy of Indian thought!!!! Or it is the conviction of established Indian system to keep Indian mind bankrupt and make it incapable to resolve its issues on its own??

Just because you versed few western and leftists thinkers doesn't make you Mr Know it all and only your version of resolves and convictions based on those leftist ideology are "acceptable".

All one sees is blind, biased, abusive and staunch opposition to any alternate belief or resolve that does not prescribe to your leftism. This despite the fact you and your cult has nothing substantial positive results to show........

Well it all makes "commiesense"!!!!!!

#64, commonsense:

Very well written. Kudos!

#70, commonsense:
You have lot of patience.

I stopped responding to Man Singh when his calculations proved that Earth's radius is more than 40,000 km.

Gill Saheb,

I know it is pointless, but trolls like you need to be fed, so here goes!

Gill wrote:

""Sir Marx did not write a resolve looking at or for Indian society.""

If you take some time to read him you will find that Marx wrote hundreds of pages on India...you may not agree, but that's different.

Gill:

""Only a fetish and moronic mind would try to impose resolves meant for western society (whose traditional society was shattered by Industrial revolution and was exploited by church for centuries) on a society that had no concept of Industrial revolution at the time and in fact the""

Moron he might have been, but he knew there was a difference between Europe and India. He addressed the issue of colonial rule...first praising it (but dialectially, just as he praised caplitalism in Europe, but in a dialectical manner ie. it was sowing the seeds of its own destruction). In his later writings he stridently criticised colonial rule. His writings on the destruction of the Indian cotton industry by unfair British tariffs and control, and the concomitant rise of the same industry in Lancashire and Manchester would make any nationalist cry, if for nothing else, the sheer vivid pathos and imagery he conjures up. But you have to read first. I did not know Marx was into fetishism. Was it sexual fetishism of some sort? He did have some illegitimate kids...

Gill:
""It is amusing to find your cult members naming their kids after tyrants like Lenin, Stalin etc.....and you ofcourse calling yourself "commiesense".....""

When the Skylab was falling a few decades ago, somebody in Punjab decided to name his son Skylab Singh! (Seriously!)

Gill:

""Only a fetish and moronic mind would try to impose resolves meant for western society (whose traditional society was shattered by Industrial revolution and was exploited by church for centuries) on a society that had no concept of""

Gill Sahab, that was then and this is now! I don't assume you are going to reject the pursuit of Abu Daulat (the greenback) since it is western currency? Or do you think the products of soft-ware industry in India cannot be used in the West, since there is a water-tight divide? Or is the Delhi Metro operating on some indigenous Vedic cycles? Hint: globalization, largely similar structures evolving pretty much everywhere, giving rise to largely similar issues and problems, of course with local inflections and takes. But of course this post is not meant for you...since you and Man Singh do what you are best at: identify the "villians" from "patriots" or sort out "villagers" from "dacoits" to keep our India safe. With self-appointed security-guards like you, who needs...?

Comonsense # 81

Bhai commonsense there is a saying in my village:

`Jitne kaale, sab mere baap ke saale'
for those who do not know much Hindi it means all darker skinned people seem to be brother in law-(wife's brother) of my father.
4 M's the villains and 4M's as heroes are quite possible. what's so worth mentioning in it.

Look Man Singh who surrendered to Invader's progeny Akbar and defeated all Indian kings for two disctricts in bengal `Maanbhumi' and `Singhbhumi'.

But during same time there is Man Singh Jhala the army chief of Maharan Pratap who sacrificed his life for Rana in battle of Haldighati.

There was Bhai Man Singh among last companions of Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj whose team served the Guru in Machchiwada Jungle of Punjab.

Dacoits never register their headquarters my freinds. It is simply commonsense. Nobody can substantiate the details of gangs of dacoits. Even Police will never share their details for security reasons even if they know it.

If I found you to be so complacent in future I'll do your another naamkaran `nonsense' from `commonsense' (Smiles)

Gill Sahab,

If you want to get rid of "Western" theories and perspectives and go truly indigenous, try reading this book:

McKim Marriott (ed.) _India Through Hindu Categories_ (Sage 1990)

Just try it for size and see how much light it sheds on comprehending the ground realities in India, using so-called "non-Western", purely Indic frameworks. The end-result is truly embarrassing for anyone even vaguely interested in social scientific understanding of any society...no gangsters stopped these guys from publishing this volume, but it simply disappeared from view, so embarrassing were the products that were on display. There is however, a great piece here by the poet/scholar A.K. Ramanujan in this volume...Once again, I am wasting my time on trolls like you, but what the heck, I have enough time on my hands and these kind of non-engagements just allows me to keep in touch with what's happening in the humanities and the social sciences...

Sujai,

Thanks! Informed in part by your piece on your blog, "Our sensitivities are injured/hurt!!""

Gill Sahab, that was then and this is now!

Exactly !!! Learn from your own words................

>>>>If you want to get rid of "Western" theories and perspectives and go truly indigenous, try reading this book:<<<<<

Once again your progative! As usual commie traits deviation.... I never said get rid of anything. Its knowledge and needs to be appreciated and learned. Problem is forcefully implementing it based on "non-indians" convictions.

You are as usual demonstrating the "bankruptcy of Indian mind".... As usual always conviction based on "non-indians" and "non-indian" ideologies... anyway mr Commiesense "obstacles" remain understanding Eastern societies from western guidelines etc approach!!!! Right! Is that's what you want me learn and non-western approach is meaningless. Really didn't understand what so great about his work on South Asia.

Keep trying ... you are getting unimpressive!!! Very very weak and irrelevant points.....

Sujai and Common congratulations on having found each other. There is a soul mate out there for everyone and timely too with valentines day around the corner.

Valentine's Day? Don't let the Valentine Day busters in India about it! :)

Ofcourse as per Commiesense - India is turf for Hindu busters only !!!

Man Singh Bhai

The 4M &M's was just a side chutiapa. Admittedly nothing to do with the topic on hand...agree with you,

Man Singh Bhai,

As in, life without some side-chutiapa is not worth living...not for me at least! Or was it "the unexamined life is not worth living"?

Gill Bhai:

""Ofcourse as per Commiesense - India is turf for Hindu busters only !!!""

Huh? For your information, Valentine's Day is an ancient Indian festival...here is the wikipedia link to this theory that has been erased by our enemies:

www.wikipedia.com/valentine/indic/history

Gill:

""India is turf for Hindu busters only !!!""


Gill Bhai I know you are Sikh. But why do you have to call Hindus, busters?? Name calling is no good my friend. Although commonsense tells me that Indian turf is for everyone, even for losers like me!

CS

It is a non-issue for me!! Maybe it is a issue for you... once again shallow and pointless statement!!! Keep trying!!!

I thought it was Indian Astroturf?

Neusinger good one! :) Yes, it is astro-turf now indeed.... When frustrated westerners coudl not beat us in hockey at our own turf, they changed the rules of the game by introducing astro-turf! Look where we are now in world hockey...

Gill Boss,

One more go at it, although it is pointless, but I do this with full respect for you. All humans can be rescued by commonsense...(not not me, but generic commonsense!)

1. You know in Haryana, there is something called a "jugadh" ie. a vehicle cobbled up from a variety of other vehicles, ie. parts from trucks, jeeps, cars, scooters, bicycles etc. The main purpose of this "jugadh" is to get people from point A to point B. They are not too concerned about the purity of the vehicle ie. is it a pure truck or a pure bicycle, although this does create a headache for licensing authorities! My point: when thinking about social issues, do not get too hung up on whether you must use a Marxist, anti-Marxist, non-Marxist, un-Marxist, Indic, non-Indic, anti-Indic, Western, Eastern, unEastern, middleEastern, onWestern, unWestern etc. framework. Decide what it is that you want to understand, and then use whatever conceptual tools available. As long as you don't lose sight of the problem that you want to address. If you are truly interested in finding out, you will use any theory at hand, ESPECIALLY theories that you happen to against, because they really challenge your pre-conceived notions about reality! Otherwise, you are simply deluding youself and indulging in what you call "fetish thinking". Let me leave you with something to think about: the "eminent" (well from some people's point of view at least) economist Joan Robinson once made a quip about ideology: "Ideology is like bad breath! We only notice other people's bad breath, not our own". Think about it. I give this commonsensical advice to you for free, since I have nothing personal against you. I do have faith in the essential intelligence of all humans, including you!

2. Another stab at the same point. I trust you do use Microsoft software, despite their slimy attempt at denigrating us Indians by using the term "Arabic" numerals to designate Indian numerals (I pause for a round of boos for microsoft). However, their "cut/paste" tools provide a good analogy. Even thinkers you despise, may have something counter-intuitive to reflect on. ""Cut"" out the crappy parts of what they have to say, and ""paste"" and use the interesting aspects of their thinking. This is pluralism at work, rather than what you call "fetish" thinking...if you want to continue with your blinkers..hey you are not the only one! I dispense commonsense not because I have a monopoly on it, but because like all humans, you probably had it one unless you got inundated and blind-sided by some "fetish" thinking.

Now please stop name-calling Hindus. Some of them might well be busters, just like some Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists too... but please don't generalize. That is "fetish" thinking, your terms, not mine...

Bhai commonsense,

After reading a story, should a person with commonsense go by the `moral' of the story or by `words' of teh story. I don'nt deny the power of words though?

My feling is that we should go by moral of teh story and not drag much to the words.

Yes I agree though choice of words should be approriate.

Khlasa panth of Sikhism was formed by Guru Bobind Singh Ji maharaj specially to protect Hindus from cruel acts of Aurangjeb. As such naturally a True Sikh always ready to sarcifice everything for Dharma. Gill Bhai expresisng the similar feleings. So let's go by `moral' of his writings and not wordings literal meanings.

Do you have any problem if a Sikh trying to protect Dharma?

Man Singh Bhai:

""Do you have any problem if a Sikh trying to protect Dharma?""

Not at all! They can protect whomever they want...as long as they don't call Hindus, "busters". Not too rude a word, but not too polite either..:)

And Dont call Guru Gobind Sing "Bobind"

Man Singh Bhai,

"Bobind" for Guru Gobind Singh? And I thought (wrongly in retrospect) that you and Sardar Gill were working as a team? I guess you have to apologize to each other..."kaha sunaa maaf karo, kuttey ki dum saaf karo"

My unconditional apology for my typographical error.

My apology to to Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj as well.

Thanks commonsense Bhai to make me realise my mistake.

Um, Man Singh, It was I who pointed out your error before Common copied my post.

Man Singh Bhai,

I was as usual just joking! Dil pey ley jaatey hao yaar...it was neusinger who picked up on the typo...thank him!

Shukran Common!

Bhai neusinger,

My many many thanks to you for pointing my mistake.

Bhai Commonsnese thanks n apology ki opportunity kam ki milti hai ese discusison forums me.

Dil to bacha hi nahi phir dil pe kaise lenge baat ko. Dimaag bhi seems to be running out of memory due to huge inputs nowadays.

To Quote:

"I had worked my head until I had Brain-fog"

Neusinger:

Brain frog?

Man Singh Bhai:

As I say, "how can I mind when I don't have a mind..."(Cliche alert!)

Neusinger #61

Re: AIT vs. anti-AIT. An interesting observation from an unlikely source! Koenraad Elst, one of the main opponents of AIT says:

"One thing which keeps on astonishing me in the present debate is the complete lack of doubt in both camps. Personally, I don't think that either theory, of Aryan invasion and of Aryan indigenousness, can claim to have been "proven" by prevalent standards of proof; eventhough one of the contenders is getting closer. Indeed, while I have enjoyed pointing out the flaws in the AIT statements of the politicized Indian academic establishment and its American amplifiers, I cannot rule out the possibility that the theory which they are defending may still have its merits."[41]

It is this complete lack of doubt, this fundamenatlist certainty, that is the main enemy of the spirit of academic discourse, regardless of who revels in it...