All Articles, Articles by Rajiv, Being Different

Dharma Bypasses ‘History-Centrism’

May 11, 2023

Most of the religious conflicts and wars involving the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) stem from disputes over what exactly God said and how he said it and what exactly it means. To ensure that order prevails, canons of “authentic” texts are formed and creeds, or condensed forms of crucial affirmations and beliefs, are debated, written down, and carefully observed as litmus tests for participation in the faith.

In Christianity, this obsession with the history of God’s intervention is best illustrated by the Nicene Creed, which makes various historical claims about the life of Jesus. It is recited in every Christian church as the basic affirmation or mission statement of Christians to which they must pledge allegiance repeatedly. For those who doubt this centrality of history in Christianity, it is instructive to read this Creed, which was first composed in the year 325 CE when Christianity was becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire. It is official doctrine in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, most Protestant churches, as well as the Anglican Communion.

The underlying message in the Creed is that salvation can be achieved only through obedience to God’s will as understood through prophets and historical events. Salvation is necessary in order that man be saved from eternal damnation for having committed Original Sin in the Garden of Eden. The solution to the Christian problem of sin is for God to enter human history at a certain point in time. Hence, the historical record of that intervention must be carefully maintained, and its truth must be taken forward and aggressively asserted. It is a truth which is born of history and applies to history, both past and future: its goal is to make sure that humans collectively obey a specific “law.” This history, if it is to be valid, must be considered universal, however particular and fallible its agents (individual and collective) may be. I have coined the term “history-centrism” to refer to this fixation on specific and often incompatible claims to divine truth revealed in history.

There is a profound difference between the history-centrism of the Abrahamic faiths and the goal of dharma (comprising Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism) which is that the individual aspirant elevate his or her consciousness in the here-and-now and in his or her very body. Dharma is not burdened by history, nor by the problem of “sin” as it recognizes no such historical act of disobedience. This was one of the topics of a wonderful conversation I had with Joshua Stanton, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue.

From the dharma perspective, one does not require a historical consciousness, at least not a rigorously developed one. Instead, the aspirant is free to start afresh and tap into his potential for discovering the ultimate reality without bondage to the past. All the dharmic traditions share this a-historical and direct approach to knowing the ultimate truth. Furthermore, this potential to know the ultimate reality by direct, disciplined practice exists in all humans even those who do not believe it does.

The prevailing Abrahamic view, by contrast, is that humans are not able to achieve unity with the divine and that, besides, the spiritual goal is salvation, not “unity with God.” Salvation can be achieved only through obedience to God’s will as understood through historical events and prophets.

Such an absolute status of history weakens the authority of individual spiritual explorations (hence, mystics are regarded notoriously with suspicion in these traditions) and becomes the basis for competing claims to truth which cannot be reconciled. Moreover, the Abrahamic view is that those without access to these historical revelations must remain, by definition, in the dark, lacking the most elementary means to make contact with God. I regard this historical fixation as the major difference between a dharma path (Hinduism and Buddhism in particular) and the Abrahamic one (Christianity, Judaism, Islam).

For the individual who follows a dharma path, it is not necessary to accept a particular account of history in order to attain a higher, embodied states of consciousness. Nor is any such historical account or belief sufficient to produce the desired state. Thus, dharma traditions have flourished for long periods without undue concern about history, relying instead on the numerous lineages of spiritual masters who teach from a state of enlightenment. Meditative practices remove the layers of conditioning that obfuscate the light of one’s true self and thereby help one to realize the highest truthwithout depending on history. Even if all historical records were lost, historical memory erased, and every holy site desecrated, the truth could be recovered by spiritual practices.

Published: March 2, 2012

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Being Different, Blogs

Difference with Mutual Respect

May 11, 2023

For over a decade, I have used interfaith exchanges as opportunities to introduce the concept of mutual respect and why it is superior to the patronizing notion of “tolerance” that is typically celebrated at such events. BEING DIFFERENT (Harpercollins, 2011), is entirely about appreciating how traditions differ from one another rather than seeing them as the same. In parallel with these works, I have been in conversations and debates with numerous thinkers of traditions other than my own.

One such dialogue has been with Father Francis Clooney, a noted Jesuit theologian and a leading professor of Religion at Harvard. Clooney not only took a good deal of time to read through my entire manuscript and write to me many useful comments, he and I have responded to each other’s public talks over the years and argued online. There have been agreements and disagreements, but with mutual respect. I wish to reflect on how this experience relates to my overall approach to interfaith dialogue.

Chapter 1 of my book cites numerous examples to show that most religious leaders feel more comfortable publicly taking the position that various traditions are the same as each other (even though in private teachings to their followers they emphasize their own side’s distinct advantages). I coined the term “difference anxiety” to refer to the anxiety that one is different from the other – be it in gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion or whatever else. The opposite of difference anxiety is difference with mutual respect, the posture I advocate for dialogue.

This is not merely a shift in public rhetoric, but requires cultivating comfort with the infinitude of differences built into the fabric of the cosmos. The rest of my book explains several philosophical foundations of the differences between the dharmic traditions (an umbrella term for Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism) and the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

There are multiple audiences I wish to debate using this book, including those Hindu gurus who preach that all religions are the same, and many westerners who adopt an assortment of eastern spiritual practices in combination with their own Judeo-Christian identities and who blur differences or wish them away. I also respond to complaints that the acknowledgment of differences will lead to mutual tensions rather than mutual respect.

In response to my recent talk at University of Massachusetts (Dartmouth), Francis Clooney made some interesting

What particularly struck me from his talk and our subsequent conversation was his observation that most of his readings of prior Hindus have shown them to be either dismissive of Christian theology’s positions, or trivializing of the important Hindu/Christian differences, or reducing the differences to modern politics, rather than uncovering the deep structures from which the differences emanate. He also accepts my book’s emphasis that many Sanskrit terms cannot be simply translated into western equivalents.

We also disagreed on several points: For instance, Clooney views inculturation by evangelists as a positive posture of Christian friendship towards Indian native culture by adopting Indian symbols and words, whereas I find it to be often used as a mean to lure unsuspecting Indians into Christianity by making the differences seem irrelevant.

The significance of such an approach to dialogues is not dependent upon whether both sides agree or disagree on a given issue. In fact, I do not consider it viable to reconcile the important philosophical differences without compromise to one side or the other. Rather, the significance here is that we are comfortable accepting these differences as a starting point – which is more honest than the typical proclamations at such encounters where differences are taboo to bring up.

This approach to difference opens the door for any given faith to reverse the gaze upon the other in dialogue. Given the west’s immense power over others in recent centuries, the framing of world religions’ discourse, including the terminology, categories and hermeneutics, has been done using western religious criteria combined with subsequent western Enlightenment theories. In my book, I refer to this as Western Universalism and feel that this artificial view of non-western faiths has been assumed as the “standard” space in which all traditions must see themselves – leading to difference anxieties, and hence to the pressure to pretend sameness.

My hope is to hold more such dialogues with experts from as many other traditions as I can, and be able to freely share both areas of agreement and disagreement without pressure or guilt.
Hindu cosmology has naturally led me to this comfort with difference: The entire cosmos and every minutest entity in it is nothing apart from the One, i.e. there is radical immanence of divinity such that nothing is left out as “profane.” Hence, unity is guaranteed by the very nature of reality, eliminating the anxiety over difference at the very foundations. In fact, the word “lila” represents the profound notion that all these differences are forms of the One, and that all existence is nothing apart from divine play, the dance of Shiva.

Rajiv Malhotra is an Indian–American researcher and public intellectual on current affairs, world religions, cross-cultural encounters and science. A scientist by training, he was previously a senior corporate executive, strategic consultant and entrepreneur in information technology and media. He is the author of Breaking India (Amaryllis, 2011), was the chief protagonist in Invading the Sacred (Rupa & Co.), and is an active writer and speaker. He is chairman of the Board of Governors of the India Studies program at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

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Being Different, Blogs

Tolerance Isn’t Good Enough

May 11, 2023

In religious circles, tolerance, at best, is what the pious extend toward people they regard as heathens, idol worshippers or infidels. It is time we did away with tolerance and replaced it with “mutual respect.”

It is fashionable in interfaith discussions to advocate “tolerance” for other faiths. But we would find it patronizing, even downright insulting, to be “tolerated” at someone’s dinner table. No spouse would appreciate being told that his or her presence at home was being “tolerated.” No self-respecting worker accepts mere tolerance from colleagues. We tolerate those we consider inferior. In religious circles, tolerance, at best, is what the pious extend toward people they regard as heathens, idol worshippers or infidels. It is time we did away with tolerance and replaced it with “mutual respect.”

Religious tolerance was advocated in Europe after centuries of wars between opposing denominations of Christianity, each claiming to be “the one true church” and persecuting followers of “false religions.” Tolerance was a political “deal” arranged between enemies to quell the violence (a kind of cease-fire) without yielding any ground. Since it was not based on genuine respect for difference, it inevitably broke down.

My campaign against mere tolerance started in the late 1990s when I was invited to speak at a major interfaith initiative at Claremont Graduate University. Leaders of major faiths had gathered to propose a proclamation of “religious tolerance.” I argued that the word “tolerance” should be replaced with “mutual respect” in the resolution. The following day, Professor Karen Jo Torjesen, the organizer and head of religious studies at Claremont, told me I had caused a “sensation.” Not everyone present could easily accept such a radical idea, she said, but added that she herself was in agreement. Clearly, I had hit a raw nerve.

I then decided to experiment with “mutual respect” as a replacement for the oft-touted “tolerance” in my forthcoming talks and lectures. I found that while most practitioners of dharma religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism) readily espouse mutual respect, there is considerable resistance from the Abrahamic faiths.

Soon afterwards, at the United Nation’s Millennium Religion Summit in 2000, the Hindu delegation led by Swami Dayananda Saraswati insisted that in the official draft the term “tolerance” be replaced with “mutual respect.” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict), who led the Vatican delegation, strongly objected to this. After all, if religions deemed “heathen” were to be officially respected, there would be no justification for converting their adherents to Christianity.

The matter reached a critical stage and some serious fighting erupted. The Hindu side held firm that the time had come for the non-Abrahamic religions to be formally respected as equals at the table and not just tolerated by the Abrahamic religions. At the very last minute, the Vatican blinked and the final resolution did call for “mutual respect.” However, within a month, the Vatican issued a new policy stating that while “followers of other religions can receive divine grace, it is also certain that objectively speaking they are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation.” Many liberal Christians condemned this policy, yet it remains the Vatican’s official position.

My experiments in proposing mutual respect have also involved liberal Muslims. Soon after Sept. 11, 2001, in a radio interview in Dallas, I explained why mutual respect among religions is better than tolerance. One caller, identified as a local Pakistani community leader, congratulated me and expressed complete agreement. For her benefit, I elaborated that in Hinduism we frequently worship images of the divine, may view the divine as feminine, and that we believe in reincarnation. I felt glad that she had agreed to respect all this, and I clarified that “mutual respect” merely means that I am respected for my faith, with no requirement for others to adopt or practice it. I wanted to make sure she knew what she had agreed to respect and wasn’t merely being politically correct. The woman hung up.

In 2007, I was invited to an event in Delhi where a visiting delegation from Emory University was promoting their newly formed Inter-Religious Council as a vehicle to achieve religious harmony. In attendance was Emory’s Dean of the Chapel and Religious Life, who happens to be an ordained Lutheran minister. I asked her if her work on the Inter-Religious Council was consistent and compatible with her preaching as a Lutheran minister, and she confidently replied that it was. I then asked: “Is it Lutheran doctrine merely to ‘tolerate’ other religions or also to respect them, and by respect I mean acknowledging them as legitimate religions and equally valid paths to God”? She replied that this was “an important question,” one that she had been “thinking about,” but that there are “no easy answers.”

It is disingenuous for any faith leader to preach one thing to her flock while representing something contradictory to naive outsiders. The idea of “mutual respect” poses a real challenge to Christianity, which insists that salvation is only possible by grace transmitted exclusively through Jesus. Indeed, Lutheran teaching stresses this exclusivity! These formal teachings of the church would make it impossible for the Dean to respect Hinduism, as opposed to tolerating it.

Unwilling to settle for ambiguity, I continued with my questions: “As a Lutheran minister, how do you perceive Hindu murtis (sacred images)? Are there not official injunctions in your teachings against such images?” “Do you consider Krishna and Shiva to be valid manifestations of God or are they among the ‘false gods’?” “How do you see the Hindu Goddess in light of the church’s claim that God is masculine?” The Dean deftly evaded every one of these questions.

Only a minority of Christians agree with the idea of mutual respect while fully understanding what it entails. One such person is Janet Haag, editor of Sacred Journey, a Princeton-based multi-faith journal. In 2008, when I asked her my favorite question — “What is your policy on pluralism?” — she gave the predictable response: “We tolerate other religions.” This prompted me to explain mutual respect in Hinduism wherein each individual has the freedom to select his own personal deity (ishta-devata, not to be confused with polytheism) and pursue a highly individualized spiritual path (sva-dharma). Rather than becoming defensive or evasive, she explored this theme in her editorial in the next issue:

“In the course of our conversation about effective interfaith dialog, [Rajiv Malhotra] pointed out that we fall short in our efforts to promote true peace and understanding in this world when we settle for tolerance instead of making the paradigm shift to mutual respect. His remarks made me think a little more deeply about the distinctiveness between the words ‘tolerance’ and ‘respect,’ and the values they represent.”

Haag explained that the Latin origin of “tolerance” refers to enduring and does not convey mutual affirmation or support: “[The term] also implicitly suggests an imbalance of power in the relationship, with one of the parties in the position of giving or withholding permission for the other to be.” The Latin word for respect, by contrast, “presupposes we are equally worthy of honor. There is no room for arrogance and exclusivity in mutual respect.”

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AI & The Future of Power, Book review

Book Review: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power

April 4, 2023

This book, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power, by the internationally acclaimed author, Rajiv Malhotra, is about the importance and effects of artificial intelligence in India and its future as a nation. Rajiv Malhotra has interesting insights as a person who has studied computer science and done extensive research on India’s history. It makes important revelations on how the advent of artificial intelligence will alter every aspect of our lives, from an international, to national to a personal level.

My Thoughts:

According to the factual history and many sources from offline and online, since the first century BCE, humans have been intrigued by the possibility of creating machines that mimic the human brain. In modern times, the term artificial intelligence was coined in 1955 by John McCarthy. Today, the amount of data generated by humans and machines far outpaces humans’ ability to absorb, interpret, and make complex decisions based on that data. Artificial intelligence forms the basis for all computer learning and is the future of all complex decision-making.

Also Read – Life Lessons From Hazrat Nizamuddin

AI is a computer science branch that deals with creating computers or machines as intelligent as human beings. It refers to the machines’ ability to perform human intelligence processes like thinking, perceiving, learning, problem-solving, and decision making. Thus in simple terms, Artificial Intelligence is the intelligence showed by machines.

In this book, the author explains the conflict between the actual being and the algorithms. He, however, tries to explain,’ most of India’s leaders, public intellectuals, media personalities, policymakers, think tanks and authors are “ignoring the dangers” that lie ahead, “living securely in their comfort zones with like-minded peers”. This could potentially be very dangerous to the nation. This massive 520 pages book, divided into two parts, focused on how India is a battleground with technically sound intelligence being masked psychologically by ridiculing that every aspect being already explained in Yogic science or the Vedic science.

The topics discussed in the book may not please many people or the hard rooted believers, but the effect of AI in their lives is put away appallingly. Unfortunately, many elite people in power also mislead the public. There is so much we have to learn from fellow countries that are advanced in every aspect.

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AI & The Future of Power, Book review

The Bad and the Ugly of AI

April 3, 2023

‘Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ….’ When Francis Bacon tried to make this distinction, he advised that few books are to be read with diligence and attention for they are invaluable. But he could not have foreseen that there can be one more factor for classification – scary!

Rajiv Malhotra’s Artificial Intelligence & Future of Power is one such book that shakes and scares you. No, he has not written about aliens or ghosts but what the future may actually hold for all of us in this world itself. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can sting. The term AI remains a little-understood phenomenon and most of us take it to be the way it’s depicted in science fictions. Apart from discussing the elementary understanding that the masses have about artificial intelligence, there are several other dimensions of AI which Malhotra touches upon in his book. He writes with proofs and evidence patterns, he quotes AI leaders and big data company owners and then identifies five battlegrounds in his book.

The unleashing of technology through AI will render people jobless simply because they will be deficient in the skill sets needed to work on AI. As well as with AI. Also, contrary to the popular belief, AI will not create more jobs – rather, it will replace less skilled humans as personnel working on AI need to have a certain specific set of skills. At almost every level of ‘work’, AI will replace a certain amount of human workforce to increase production efficiency.

This will widen the already existing socio-economic gap and given the population of India, increased AI usage will lead to serious law & order situation, says the author. Malhotra goes on to the extent of predicting that the world may someday discuss de-populating the earth by eliminating the masses – a ghastly foresight.

Now contemplate a situation where you want to write on social media about the issue of social justice or gender equality and how these notions significantly differ in India from what is applicable in west, but you get a notice that your post contains ‘objectionable material’ so it can’t be published. This might sound familiar but ever wondered how and why it happens? Malhotra has answered it in his book. Social media is driven by algorithms and these algorithms are managed by AI, which in turn is managed by people who have their own biases as they have been born, brought up, trained and made to cherish the western universal notions of everything.

This can largely subvert democracy because democracies have fault-lines. Even a popularly elected mass leader is bound to have critics. But what if AI-driven algorithms started to flag the popular leader’s social media posts as a handful of critics find it to be objectionable? It has already happened in the USA with Trump. AI can, thus, undermine an individual, even a very powerful one.

Big tech companies sit on a mountain of data. Machine learning systems have some implicit and explicit values, norms and ideals that train the algorithms. Analysing an individual’s clicks on social media regarding his likes and dislikes, a pattern can be recognized and predicted and the individual can be easily manipulated accordingly. AI here acts as a force multiplier that strengths whatever values and policies are embedded within it. Specific narratives can be controlled and manipulated by AI. This can result in digital colonisation.

In his earlier books, Rajiv Malhotra has pointed to the western bias and the population parameters through which the west weighs the rest of the world, including India. The disdain western intellectuals and our very own brown intellectuals have for bhartiyata is an offshoot of viewing everything through the western lens. This is what makes yog gross and yoga cool! Western universalism (an assumption built into western thought that are projected as being universally applicable, even though, in reality they are specific to the history and worldviews of the west) has no room for accommodation and in worldview, all the modern self-proclaimed progressive values emanate from the west.

In his latest work, Malhotra lays out how urgently India needs to develop an Indian grand narrative that will serve as the base for its own AI platforms. India currently relies on obsolete European socialist and liberal theories and that is why the social science models taught here are western frameworks that are used to interpret Indian society. Masses in India are not even remotely concerned by AI. I they have heard of it, they vaguely identify with a robot, the sci-fi kind. Malhotra points out that in India, the public concerns over AI-related issues are at the level where concerns for global warming were a quarter of a century ago.

Worst of all, the State seems to be indifferent to this obvious threat. Malhotra mentions that other than the Indian military and the few baby steps taken by the Government thinktank NITI Aayog, no one seems interested. Social Science academics are embarrassed to even discuss AI as they lack even a basic understanding of AI and the general population is ignorant. That’s why Rajiv Malhotra’s book opens with a quote from Ramayana, ‘it is extremely easy to find people who speak pleasantly. But it is rare to find people who speak and hear true words even when they’re not pleasing to the ears’. Hope this book wakes India from its slumber.

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Book review, Book Reviews, Ten Heads Of Ravana

Opinion | ‘Ten Heads of Ravana’: A Brilliant Takedown of Eminent Left-Oriented Scholars

March 29, 2023

For the past two centuries, Indology has been controlled by Western scholars and institutions, which have applied Western methods to study Indian civilisation. Infinity Foundation has, for the past several years, been at the forefront in the field of civilisational studies, applying the lens of ‘Dharma’ to examine a broad range of topics. “The present book — Ten Heads of Ravana — is the latest offering from our team of brilliant scholars, scholars I have mentored”, says Rajiv Malhotra.

The title of this collection, Ten Heads of Ravana, has been chosen with care. The use of ‘Ravana’ is intended as a parody and not literally. The metaphorical resemblances are clear — the historical Ravana disrupted society’s Hindu structures, and the ‘heads’ chosen for this book are considered by Hindus, today, to be individuals doing something similar, but intellectually and not with physical violence.

The ten scholars featured in this book are powerful in the academic discourse today; they have worked diligently most of their lives to develop their intellectual ‘weapons’, and their impact is not to be trivialised. There is no intention on the part of the authors to attack the individuals at a personal level, but rather to cast their work in the framework from the perspective of Dharma. The authors of these essays have taken care not to engage in any ad hominem attacks or unprofessional takedowns of the individual scholars. Ramayana, one of the greatest mahakavyas of Bharat, shows us the nature of Ravana as the mighty king of Lanka and the main antagonist of the epic. He is believed to have learned the Arthashastra from Shukracharya, was adept at the use of maya, and won boons from Brahma and Shiva.

The ten contemporary scholars in this book have been chosen because their work includes aspects that many Hindus today consider adharmic, just as the historical Ravana was perceived in his time. And just as the historical Ravana defended his positions, so did the ten scholars. The authors of this book respect the opponents’ right to intellectual freedom and merely wish to offer rebuttals so the readers can decide for themselves.

Consider, for example, the article on Romila Thapar. She has been one of India’s foremost historians, having held control of premier national educational and research institutions to influence academic discourse and government policies over decades. Anurag Sharma, in his brilliant essay, refutes Thapar’s historiographical assumptions by providing strong counterexamples from Indian history.

The Sanskrit scholar Sheldon Pollock has been the subject of Rajiv Malhotra’s book, ‘The Battle for Sanskrit’. Several volumes were published from the series of Swadeshi Indology conferences held in Chennai and New Delhi by Infinity Foundation India. The editor of these volumes, Professor KS Kannan, presents a powerful essay on Pollock’s major arguments and modus operandi. Kannan shows that despite being a scholar who makes his living out of Sanskrit, Pollock denies the very nativity of Sanskrit to India and calls the language dead despite many proofs to the contrary.

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Book Reviews, Ten Heads Of Ravana

Book Review: Ten Heads Of Ravana

March 25, 2023

‘The Ten Heads of Ravana’ is a compilation of critiques of prominent scholars both from India and abroad who write about India.

Infinity Foundation helmed by Rajiv Malhotra has been a pioneer in taking positions regarding India’s civilisational heritage and has been a stout defender of the dharmic and the Hindu way of life.

Rajiv Malhotra has been the trailblazer in studying the misrepresentations of Indian philosophy, thought and culture by western academia and has been instrumental in awakening a whole generation of Indians to the dangers of these misrepresentations.

Toxic discourse started in academia slowly filter their way down into everyday life and India is facing great threats to its civilisational ethos due to the faulty and dangerous caricatures of her that have gotten entrenched into the Indian psyche, the origins of which can be traced to academic discourse of India by the West.

Infinity Foundation set up in 1994 has come a long way in nurturing a certain way of thinking in its followers and cadre and this has now fructified in the form of a book, The Ten Heads of Ravana, which is a compilation of critiques of prominent scholars both from India and abroad who write about India.

The ten heads are symbolic and ten academic personalities and their work have been chosen as subjects of critique by the young scholars at Infinity.

Infinity’s young scholars whose essays and critiques make up this book, have analysed and subjected their work to rigorous scrutiny and rebutted gross misrepresentations regarding India with ample proof and rejoinders.

The ten personalities selected for critique are Romila Thapar, Sheldon Pollock, Michael Witzel, Devdutt Pattanaik, Irfan Habib, Shashi Tharoor, Audrey Truschke, Ramachandra Guha, Kancha Ilaiah and Wendy Doniger.

Anurag Sharma is the author who has taken on Romila Thapar’s work to critique. He has prepared a robust critique of her work using traditional sources to rebut her various misrepresentations.

This approach is quite novel because it is an attempt to critique the work of a Marxist scholar using traditional examples.

For instance, Thapar tries to posit that Islamic rulers were great patrons of the arts and poetry and that it was during their reign that bhakti poetry, for example, flowered and flourished. However, using material from traditional sources, Anurag establishes that any flowering of bhakti poetry and the rise of bhakti saints was linked only to Hindu patronage.

Prof K S Kannan is the author who has chosen Sheldon Pollock’s work to critique. He has forcefully admonished Pollock for his unsubstantiated attacks on Sanskrit.

His critique draws on and adds to the refutations of Pollock’s positions, put out by various other scholars during the Swadeshi Indology Conference Series held in 2016-17.

Manogna Sastry’s chosen scholar is Michael Witzel, who sitting in Harvard has been one of the staunch proponents of the Aryan Invasion/Migration theory which has become entrenched in Indian discourse and is the seed for the whole Dravidian movement in the south of India.

She has deftly debunked his various theories using archaeological and other evidence. Her critique is so logical and precise, one wonders how so called scholars like Witzel were able to run their propaganda for so long without scrutiny.

Subhodeep Mukhopadhyay has chosen to take on Devdutt Pattanaik who has become the poster boy for interpreting Hinduism for contemporary times in India, disguising himself as a leadership coach using “Indian lens” to understand the discipline of Management.

He turns itihas (thus it happened) into myth (fiction) and distorts concepts and meanings of Sanskrit words to make a hotch-potch.

Further, he superimposes the LGBTQ interpretation to our traditional texts thereby making all our traditional texts open to any sort of contorted and distorted interpretation.

Subhodeep does a masterful takedown of this popular figure’s positions with logic and analysis and builds on the critique of Pattanaik already done by Rajiv Malhotra and Nityanand Misra.

It’s high time the counters to his narrative also got popular. It must be mentioned here that Pattanaik has been continuously evading debating his detractors.

Once again, Manogna Sastry takes on the powerful and towering personality of Irfan Habib to do a purvapaksha of his work. Irfan Habib has arguably been the single most influential person in shaping the India discourse post independence.

And what should have been an honest attempt by him to write the true history of this country and the evolution of its collective identity, became an exercise in “concealment and inversion of historical facts, creation of new narratives and false historical accounts and using obfuscation to counter any challenge posed to his work”.

His blatant use of the Marxist lens to interpret Indian history and his role in falsifying the historicity of the Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi issue have been tackled head on with aplomb by Manogna.

Divya Reddy has chosen to critique the work of Shashi Tharoor, famous parliamentarian and someone who claims that he is one who knows the true definition of being Hindu.

She exposes the weak position of Tharoor that Hinduism is a morally relativist religion where anything goes. She also criticises him for espousing the concept of tolerance as opposed to mutual respect and making it the exclusive duty of Hindus to shoulder.

Tharoor buys into all the tropes of Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory, India as a nation shaped primarily through its waves of invasion, freedom of Abrahamic faiths to proselytise freely and yet decides he represents true Hinduism. Divya has skillfully dissected Tharoor’s positions.

Subhodeep Mukhopadhyay and Manogna Sastry take on the newest kid on the block of Hinduphobic scholars from the West, namely Audrey Truschke.

Audrey Truschke, apart from being broadly Hinduphobic, is also intensely Aurangzeb-philic and the authors have exposed her lies on Aurangzeb conclusively.

Her interpretation of Hinduism and her negation of the right of the works like the Bhagawad Gita, the Upanishads to be called Hindu, have been thoroughly examined by the present authors and refuted very elegantly.

Her mistranslations of verses from the Ramayana which were called out even by her western academic peers like Prof Robert Goldman have been analysed and minutely deconstructed by the authors of this paper.

T N Sudarshan and Divya Reddy do a very detailed critique on Ramachandra Guha’s writings covering topics as diverse as cricket, Gandhi and environment.

Guha’s crediting Nehru for the software boom is termed by the authors very interestingly as “a brilliant illustration of retroactive credit-taking”.

The authors have also very creatively critiqued Guha’s positions on fundamentally western theories like subalternism, colonialism, nationalism, Marxism and concluded that Guha is intrinsically anti-Hindu and an (un)builder of nation.

Sharda Narayanan and Subhodeep Mukhopadhyay dissect the works of Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, who is a noted writer, academician and someone who calls himself a “Shudra intellectual” who champions Dalit causes.

The authors of this paper have pointed out the deep problems in Ilaiah’s articulations when he says that civil wars are a “necessary evil” and calls for civil war to terminate Brahmins globally.

That he has not been given rejoinders and has had the privilege of deposing in front of the USCIRF is a shame and this counter to his hatred has come not a day too soon.

H R Meera takes on the American Indologist Wendy Doniger’s scholarship and has systematically exposed the very agenda driven mis-translations of various Indian texts, that have given rise to distortions in the meanings.

The author highlights how these distortions have become the accepted version of the text even in India and how this is causing immense harm to our own understanding of our texts.

To conclude, this book has covered some excellent ground in reclaiming the narrative for India and is a must read for everyone so that they are well informed of the perils of interpreting Indian ways and traditions using a lens that is alien to us.

This book not only informs but arms one with the tools to do a robust purvapaksha of interpretations of us and defend the Bharatiya way of life.

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Time for Indians to act, decolonize, reclaim their civilizational sense

March 14, 2023

Hyderabad: How India and Indians should decolonise, take control and reclaim their sense of civilisation? Addressing a range of issues at a joint media conference here on Monday, the founder of Infinity Foundation and prominent authors Rajiv Malhotra and Prof Vijaya Viswanathan answered, covering a range of issues the country has been facing on multiple fronts. Malhotra said unlike earlier the current generation is being driven by social media where one has to make their point in two seconds. “Our civilisation is based on elements which require a lot of concentration, and a lot of attention span, there would be discussions and debates for days. However, there is a degradation of the mind, quality of thinking has gone down these days. When you have such people in a democracy you have to cater to such people to get elected. So politicians’ thinking turn low-level. They offer an emotional idea here and there which is simple and everybody can understand. This is the problem of downward spiral of democracy for appeasement of people. This requires them to pick a short-term, quick sensational issues. Since people fall in such a trap they continue to demand more of the same. He said China has educated three generations of people over the past 50 years. They may not know English, but they are more critical and come up dwelling deep into issues and come up with intelligent answers. Whereas, “Our people engage more in the useless talk with randomly give answers,” he added. He found fault with the education system and lack of proper values in the NCERT and UPSC examinations. Though the country claims to be politically free it is depending on foreign consultants for all kinds of advice telling us about data security, human rights, National Education Policy. We have opened up for others to come and take over the space, he added. He called for allowing foreign universities to set up their campuses without any regulations vis a vis their Indian counterparts, will be nothing more than self-destruction 2.0, if not handled properly, he said. Malhotra stated that emotional slogans like Viswa Guru and VasudaivaKutumbakam are not sustainable when the country is failing to produce thinking people and competitive people needed today.. Prof Viswanathan said the government and parents are failing to do due diligence while inviting foreign consultants as well as sending their children for overseas education. She cited how Singapore has scrapped its tie-up with prominent Yale University, as that country feels liberal arts and social sciences of the university are divisive and not in interest of the country. She said most undergraduate students after studying four years of liberal arts even in prestigious universities like Harvard remain jobless. Bringing such subject areas, into Indian universities would result in unskilling youth and “We end up paying to bring up our children to become activists by studying such western-oriented liberal arts.” Responding to a question, Malhotra said either the government or the gurus who wield lot of authority and have followers and are not short of funds, should ignite fire among people to think about the nation. He said the BJP and RSS, as well as organising sakhas could not produce intellectual kshatriyas to lead India. On the other hand the Left has deeply entrenched the academic and intellectual areas. Even after eight years, the current government could not change the syllabi of NCERT and UPSC. Now things are moving at a faster pace at global scale. However, Indian investment in the R&D remains lowest in the world which makes it lag behind in technology. Supplying IT coolies and following others does not mean owning technology. China provides labour and outsmarts its own clients by learning technology from the US, but also going ahead of that country, he pointed out.

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News, Snakes in the ganga

Need to focus on education & Indian values

March 14, 2023

HYDERABAD: Rajiv Malhotra, author, researcher and founder of Infinity Foundation, USA is on a three-day long visit to Hyderabad. As part of his visit, he interacted with mediapersons on issues such as “western influences on Indian academia”, “divisive narratives from within and outside the country” and “threat to Indian value system”. The interaction was organised by Pragna Bharati, Telangana, an independent forum of intellectuals that holds talks and seminars by prominent leaders.

Among other guests presiding over the event, were K. Aravinda Rao, former DGP, Andhra Pradesh (united cadre) who is also a writer and a translator; and Vijaya Viswanathan, President, Infinity Foundation and co-author of “Varna, Jati, Caste”.

Introducing Malhotra to media persons, Aravinda Rao said, “Rajiv Malhotra is admired across the country. His fresh insights impinge on how polity functions. He has opened our eyes to the developments taking place outside the country. Despite our own differences, we, as a nation, want to remain together. However, some dialogues that have developed overseas, have begun to dominate our narrative within the country. Rajiv Malhotra’s knowledge has enabled thinkers, political analysts, to understand the ramifications of some of these ideas. The question before us is, how do we tackle this “nuisance” and to ensure that the country’s “unity” is not broken.”

Interacting with media persons, Malhotra talked about the “ignorance of the Indian masses and how to bring them back on track”. “In spite of 30 years of work, there are a few, nowadays, who are interested in doing hard work. There is a degradation of quality of mind, the level of thinking among the masses has gone down. In a democracy, however, you have to cater to such people in order to get elected. Politicians have to become emotional, which leads to appeasement politics,” Malhotra said.

“We have a third generation of educated people who cannot think for themselves. They may have foreign degrees from reputed universities but they are not able to answer my questions. They are not able to think clearly. I am thinking of bigger things such as lack of proper education, lack of a valid value system. Our problem is that once the politicians get elected, they invite foreign advisors to guide us on our education system, data rights, etc,” he said.

“Now the government is going to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India with no restrictions. Indian universities have restrictions but foreign ones do not. We are proudly becoming ‘vishwa-chelas’ instead of ‘vishwa-guru’,” he added.

Emphasising on the content taught in foreign universities, Dr Vijaya Viswanathan added that there are courses being taught in foreign universities. “The government doesn’t do due diligence to see who they are bringing to India, who they are working for. They are just doing a consulting assignment to make money for their parent company, they have no interest in India,” she said.

Adding, she said that countries like Russia and Singapore value their civilisational ethos. They value their education system. “For example, after ten years of collaboration Singapore university separated ways from Yale university saying that their liberal arts have made our society very divisive,” she said. Dr Rajiv Malhotra will be visiting Hyderabad Central University (HCU) on Tuesday to interact with students

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