http://www.niticentral.com/print-posts.php?

p=190185

By Sandhya Jain on

14 Feb 2014

Faux fury is being built up over a 21st century drain inspectors report, this time from the groves of American academia, bewitchingly titled The Hindus: An Alternative History (Penguin, 2009). Hindu outrage at the ridicule and insult heaped on the community and its gods, and the fallacious understanding of Hindu philosophy, which psycho-babble was presented as an historical narrative about the Hindu people, led to the filing of a court case in 2011, during the course of which the publishers, Penguin Books India, found themselves unable to defend the contents and chose to retreat. As part of the settlement between the two parties, accepted by the Saket district court, Penguin India will recall and withdraw all copies of the book from all Indian stores and pulp it at its own cost. The triumph of this small act of Hindu assertiveness has predictably sparked outrage in Left-Liberal circles in India and exposed their close coordination with anti-Hindu circles in America, and the West. Wendy Doniger, Hindus, and fraudulent Left-liberals What adds to their discomfort is the inconvenient fact that neither the state nor the court has banned the book; it was Penguin Books that discovered that Brand Chicago has no immunity in the face of academic challenge and should not be taken at face value in future. The publisher apologetically averred that it respects all religions worldwide, which is a tacit admission that the book was derogatory to Hindus and their divinities. The next stage of this fight must be to destroy the secrecy with which peer review

1 of 3

14-03-2014 23:40

http://www.niticentral.com/print-posts.php?p=190185

functions in academia as a closed cartel that promotes ideologically-aligned writers and ensures them publication in prestigious journals and publishing houses, and favourable reviews. This lethal nexus can be broken by naming reviewers and making them defend their decisions in writing, which must be made available to the author and interested scholars. The issue of freedom of thought and writing invariably comes up amidst such controversies. American academics have poor claims here, given their propensity to shut out dissident or divergent views. A recent example of free speech on American campuses is Diana Ecks crusade to ban former Minister Subramanian Swamy from teaching a summer course at Harvard because he had expressed some controversial views in an Indian newspaper on an issue internal to India. Eck and friends were supported by a leading Indian sociologist who pompously declaimed, Swamy has the right to his opinion but not the right to be published. Now the boot is on another foot. Then, there is the small matter of the president of the University of Pennsylvania browbeating the students of the varsitys Wharton School and forcing them to withdraw an invitation to a prominent Indian politician who was to speak (via video conference) at an event being organised by the student body in March 2013. It is a different matter that the US envoy to India has now secured an appointment to meet the same leader after being twice refused (for not coming through the proper channels!) One of the great American academic banshees, Martha Nussbaum, also of the University of Chicago, wrote an article in an Indian newspaper in December 2013, expressing shock at the Supreme Courts verdict on Section 377. Such laws, she argued, discourage visitors, by which she meant that many (western) actors, sports stars, and academics, among others, would not want to visit a country with anti-gay laws. Nussbaum said that the University of Chicago planned to open a centre for collaborative research in Delhi in March 2014, but the Supreme Court verdict could well affect our scholarly activities. Prima facie, this sounds absurd, as the right or lack of it to gay sex cannot be part of the research activities. But given the manner in which she has presented her case, the authorities would do well to consider if according her a visa is at all desirable. Coming to Donigers impugned book, there are simply too many mistakes to be accidental. The very map of India is headless minus the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The cover jacket is vulgar and lascivious, depicting Sri Krishna astride a horse made up of the bodies of numerous naked women, thereby debasing the Krishna-Gopi relationship which is based on equality between the divine (brahma) and the individual souls (jiva). But then, what can one expect from a scholar who says she is creating a narrative of religions within the narrative of history, as a linga is set in a yoni Such pornographic similes can only evoke disgust, yet Doniger and all who support her see nothing amiss in sexualising the history or civilisation of India. The language used to describe divinities like Sri Rama and Sita Devi or revered characters like Kunti is unacceptable, and the claims do not bear reiteration. Suffice it to say that besides having no evidentiary basis, such repulsive ideas cannot pass under the genre of free speech in any civilised society. That such persons enjoy tenure in leading western universities should be cause of concern for those who pay the handsome tuition fees to be educated in these institutions.
14-03-2014 23:40

2 of 3

http://www.niticentral.com/print-posts.php?p=190185

Even mundane facts are conveyed incorrectly. Thus, she claims that Emperor Akbar was saved by Hindus from a Muslim rival, when it was his father Humayun who was saved by the Hindu king of Umerkot. She dates Aurangzebs persecution of Hindus, Sikhs and Shiite Muslims to 1687, though this began decades previously and saw the destruction of numerous Hindu temples in South India (before he became ruler in 1658); Guru Tegh Bahadur was beheaded in 1675. Doniger has clearly not been able to decide if her alternative history is actually an invented history. These few instances should suffice to establish Wendy Donigers lack of integrity as a scholar and her inability to correctly interpret Hindu scriptures and traditions. The book is loaded with prejudice against Hindu civilization, its cultures and traditions, and promotes contempt for them. Those who support such intellectual exercises have compared the withdrawal of Donigers book by Penguin Books with the Maharashtra Government decision to ban James Laines Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, which caused outrage for glibly questioning the legitimacy of one of the greatest heroes of the nation; those who saw nothing amiss in such despicable slander took umbrage at Laines being asked to furnish evidentiary support for his scurrilous writing. Of course, they fell silent when Abhishek Manu Singhvi sent a legal notice to Spanish author Javier Moro on grounds that his book, El Sari Rojo (The Red Sari), on Sonia Gandhi amounted to exploiting somebodys privacy for personal commercial gains. Interestingly, neither the Congress president nor vice-president, both of whom rushed to speak out against the Supreme Court verdict upholding the legality of Section 377 on homosexuality, have commented on the withdrawal of Wendy Donigers insulting portrayal of Hindu civilisation and its respected divinities. (Niti Central stands by freedom of speech and is opposed to censorship in any manner or form.)

RELATED ARTICLES

Doniger, Hindus and spurious concern of fraudulent Left-liberals February 12, 2014

3 of 3

14-03-2014 23:40