Battle for Sanskrit

In an exclusive interview with Republic Media Network’s Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami on the ‘Nation Wants To Know’, author Rajiv Malhotra laid bare the danger of ‘Breaking India’ forces. He elaborated on various themes ranging from ‘wokeism’ to Hinduphobia which featured in his recently published book ‘Snakes in the Ganga: Breaking India 2.0’. The author argued the need for the government to create institutions for countering the influence of anti-India forces dominating institutions abroad. Malhotra also pitched an audit of India Study centres in the West and the creation of a Vedic-based university in India.

Here are his take on key aspects:

• Attempt to view Indian techies in the US from a caste prism

“They are saying that the H-1B visa should be having caste quotas. They want to make sure there are enough Dalits representing, minorities representing. It should not be a meritocracy. Because the claim is being made that meritocracy in IITs is a sham, is basically a cover for casteism, caste privilege.”

“The US government, the Democratic Party have a large number of wokeist Congressmen. Some of them are Indians actually. Pramila Jayapal- a very senior person. The lobby which is turning caste into a form of racism is very strong and Harvard is actually enacting policy that caste should be treated as race. So are many other universities. Equating caste as racism is almost becoming a de facto stand in many places in public life.”

• Impact of wokeism

“Wokeism is being projected in India as a ‘Breaking India’ force. It is being brought into Indian education system as Liberal Arts. Because foolishly the NEP 2020 introduced Liberal Arts with the Harvard variety. And Liberal Arts with the Harvard variety is filled with wokeism and that has entered India. People in NITI Aayog are using these Harvard consultants and other American consultants for forming policies on all sorts of things in India.”

“ESG is a corporate buzzword in Mumbai. E stands for environment, S stands for social justice and G stands for Governance. So to improve social justice in your corporate environment, these kind of wokeist ideas are being brought in through the HR Department. Once the Silicon Valley institutionalises these things, it is going to have a mirror effect on their subsidiaries in India and other outsourcing companies in India which Americans use.”

• Wokeism in Ivy League Universities

“One of the ironies and big surprises in this book is that Harvard is the hub of this kind of anti-India wokeism with Indian billionaries funding it. There is a centre called Mahindra Humanities Centre at Harvard. There is a Piramal centre at Harvard. And there is a Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute. There is Godrej involved, Premji involved, Tata Institute of Social Sciences involved. In India, there is a mirror effect in Ashoka University and CREA University. They are all bringing this extreme leftism and wokeism into the Indian curriculum,” he claimed.

• China’s duplicity on wokeism

“China has a double-faced view on wokeism. They don’t want this domestically. In fact, they don’t want Americans to teach anything but STEM- Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine. They want to learn it from Americans. They send their children and they fund these kinds of things. They don’t want to learn about Chinese history, Chinese social issues, Chinese political issues. They do not want Americans to talk about Tibet, Uighur, Hong Kong and all that.”

• S Jaishankar’s role in countering propaganda

“This international revolution going on is a very serious thing you have to look at and you cannot say that India is not a victim of it. If India was not a victim of it, (External Affairs Minister) Jaishankar would not go around with a fire extinguisher putting out fires. Why does the US State Department puts out all these things about India lags in religious freedom, India doesn’t have enough social justice. Who is it to talk about it? It gets it from certain places, certain think tanks in the US. Jaishankar is putting out these fires almost one every week. But he has not figured out where it is coming from.”

• Impact of social media companies in India 

“The media ecosystem is inseparable from the social media ecosystem. Because a large part of the eyeballs and large part of what people are consuming, youth particularly, is social media. And this is run by algorithms and algorithms are controlled by few companies. And these companies are deciding who gets cancelled, who gets promoted, which tweet will get a boost and which will get banned. Americans control the algorithms and their Artificial Intelligence and algorithms are running a large part of Indian social media for sure and a large part of Indian society in terms of influencing. So don’t be surprised if there is some kind of a media influence from somewhere else in the 2014 election.”

• Omidyar Network infusing capital in India

“The infiltration of ideas and ideology to socially re-engineer India is not happening so much through NGOs and FCRA. It is happening through startups and the money is through FDI. FDI is not under the scanner. People can come and say that we are making an AI company and we are going to offer digital services to villages.”

“I have had some conversations with people in national security. I have made them aware. They are very alarmed. They are very interested. They are very concerned. They have asked people to read up all this and come up with some position which will I think will be good for India.”

• Threat from China

“There should be data privacy laws because the Americans are pulling a whole lot of big data in their algorithms. China is also doing a lot of surveillance in India. With all these facial recognition and video capturing devices that are Chinese, this data and the Apps they have installed are far more dangerous than TikTok. TikTok is dangerous, but I would say that the real dangerous things that China is doing are not being stopped by India. Some of the Chinese investments are funnelled through another country like Singapore or UAE.”

• The problem of Hinduphobia

“Indians told me that this is sensationalism. There is no such problem. We are doing very well. We are the oldest civilization. We are a great democracy. They didn’t understand that this is a serious issue that needs to be nipped in the bud. The problem of Hinduphobia has gotten worse. So now it is fashionable. You see things in Canada, UK and all over. These are blatant Hinduphobia.”

“India needs to step up its responsibility to protect Indian civilization. It is not good enough to have Yoga Day and all that. It is all very nice. But when you are attacked, you need to have a very aggressive defence.”

• ‘Republic TV should become a global enterprise’

“My request is Republic TV should take on Al Jazeera, BBC, and Fox TV and become a global enterprise. I will do everything I can to make that happen. Because we need such an enterprise on the world stage. You have the best position because first of all, you think strategically. You understand the issues and you already have 10 years of success.”

• Solutions to combat ‘Breaking India’ forces

“We should have an annual audit of India studies in the rest of the world. I have done it informally my own way. But I am happy to help. Which means that we take all the India Study centres, South Asia Study centres, do an annual report on who is who, who is good, who is bad, what they do, who funds them, what’s the agenda and what’s the outcome.”

“Start a Vedic-based Liberal Arts University that will take on Harvard. It has to be based in India. It should not be mirroring Harvard but actually combating Harvard. And it should bring in people with traditional background but who also understand Western thought, Chinese thought, Islamic thought. So it should be a competitive kind of university and you should produce the next generation of thinkers who will populate the public discourse, media and civil services. Next thing I would do is to change the UPSC exam…,” he offered.

New Delhi: Monika Arora, one of the writers of the book on the Delhi riots which Bloomsbury has withdrawn, had been advocate for petitioners who had called for passages in Wendy Doniger’s book on Hindus to be removed in 2011. Doniger’s book was eventually withdrawn by Penguin Books India in 2014.

The withdrawal of the University of Chicago scholar’s book had triggered anger on Twitter, resulting in the same debate that is afoot now – on freedom of speech and expression.

Arora, who since Bloomsbury’s move has tweeted on how “free speech and acceptance of all opinion” have been curtailed, now finds herself on the other side of the debate.

Arora’s book on the February riots in Delhi, which she co-wrote with Sonali Chitalkar and Prerna Malhotra, garnered criticism after it emerged that BJP leader Kapil Mishra was among those releasing it. Mishra’s speeches before the riots are believed to have incited the violence.

Many have also questioned the distinct bias the book appears to take against Citizenship Amendment Act protesters, along with the uniqueness of how quickly it was brought to print even though investigations into the riots are still ongoing amidst allegations of distinct favouritism against Delhi Police.

Also read: Jamia: For Delhi Police, India’s Top Central Varsity is a Free Hunting Ground for FIR 59/20

The book will now be published by Garuda Books.

Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History, published in India in 2011, had been held to great scrutiny. A complaint was filed by seven petitioners to remove objectionable passages from it. Among them was Dinanath Batra, who is noted for his legal crusade against perceived affront to Hinduism by authors.

The original complaint criticised the book for “heresies and factual inaccuracies” and criticised Doniger for having a selective approach to writing about Hinduism, Reuters had reported then.

“She denounced the Hindu Gods and freedom fighters of India,” Monika Arora had told Reuters shortly after Penguin had pulled the book in 2014.

The legal notice said Doniger was incorrect in describing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s militant wing.

In an interview with Rajiv Malhotra, who wrote the book, Academic Hinduphobia: A Critique of Wendy Doniger’s Erotic School of Indology, Arora questions as to why anyone would go against Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code. The section deals with “deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs.”

Arora also mentions in the interview that Batra did not attempt to get the book banned but wanted the passages that irked him removed. She says in the interview that the criticism to Penguin pulling Doniger’s book was imposed by international media and Leftist scholars within the country.

Countering criticism of the ban on Doniger’s book, Arora had also written in Malhotra’s blog in 2014, “…[T]his lynch mob and intolerant pseudo-secularists in the name of freedom of expression are crying from rooftops and demanding freedom of defamation.”

She further writes of ‘the likes of Arundhati Roy’, “…[T]hese champions of freedom of expressions have took upon them their favorite agenda to attack all those who do not agree with them and who dare to talk in favour of Hindus or the Freedom Fighters of this country. They are the likes of the American President who openly declared “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” (sic).”

Six years later, on Sunday, Arora’s tweets took a slightly different tone. To one Twitter user, she said, “we will work together against Intellectual fascism, throttling of voices and threats to freedom of expression by issuance of DIGITAL FATWAS by international left lobbies. We have a right to speak and right to write…”

Why is it that the West thinks that it is game to put down anything Hindu? Why is there such hatred among its population towards the people of the third biggest religion in the World, which has millenniums of unbroken rich, history, culture and heritage? Right from the 18^th century British Colonialism, there have been steady attempts to denigrate, abuse, and destroy Hindu culture, religion, education and the society in general. Whatever the West finds attractive or ‘good’ in Hinduism, they shamelessly appropriate. Rajiv Malhotra calls this phenomenon as ‘digestion’. Though the countries/continents have changed, the skin color is too deep for the White Christians and also white left/liberals to not to inherit their forefather’s prejudices and misdeeds. The academia (both in the U.S and Europe) especially is heavily involved in leading this hatred. It becomes much more difficult to disregard their culpability when they are supposed to be the educated ones with unbiased scholarships and researches.

In this line of the esteemed lineage of academic Hinduphobic serial abusers comes their newest star, Audrey Truschke. She has the incredible distinction of being fathered and mothered (academically) by two of the most Hinduphobic American academicians: Sheldon Pollock and Wendy Doniger. Both of these scholars have been thoroughly exposed in Rajiv Malhotra’s ‘Battle Of Sanskrit’, ‘Invading the Sacred’ and ‘Academic Hinduphobia’ books. Many others have also written about them, which finally lead to one of Wendy’s books being pulped in India, a few years ago. Their contempt for Hinduism, their evil machinations to see it abused and ultimately destroyed and their continued attack on it through lies have all been well documented. Hence Audrey, having been taught by both of them, is living up to her mentors. She has not disappointed them yet. They should be so proud of her. She is now an Assistant Professor, Department of South Asian History at the Rutger’s University. And did I mention that her father-in-law is an evangelist and that her husband worked in Pakistan? Not even Aurangzeb could have come up with such a concoction that favors Hinduphobia! Interestingly she is also Aurangzeb’s fan-girl. But more on that later.

Her disdain, her hatred to be exact, for Hinduism has been out in the public for quite sometime now. Through her twitter account @AudreyTruschke, she has been assaulting Hinduism and Hindus for quite some time. She is very active on twitter where she has deliberately played with the feelings and the emotions of Hindus both in India and abroad. So on Friday the 20^th she raised a hell storm after she quoted a despicable cartoon published by the leftist sroll.in.

In her first tweet she is saying the Lord Rama could handle criticism. But then it gets ugly.

So she calls Lord Rama, one of the most important and popular Gods of the Hindus a misogynist pig and uncouth.

And of course there were several reactions to her:

So what has this got to do with White Supremacy and Rutgers University? Well for one thing, she works there, as I had mentioned earlier. But let us dig a little deeper into this university to put this whole issue into a proper perspective.

Slave owners, in the first place, built Rutgers University, with the help of slaves. Most of it benefactors, teachers and students were slave owners. The college also received substantial donations of land and money from slaveholders. It also has a history of being closely connected to the Evangelicals. The Dutch reformed Church was the one that came up with the idea to have such an institution. Though the University has severed its ties, officially, with the New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1856, it still maintains a close-knit relationship even now. This isn’t a big thing as many of the Universities have a deep Christian connection. But the issue becomes more apparent when one discovers that the severance mentioned earlier is just eyewash.

It has a history of controversies where a white supremacy view is supported in one way or another. Here are a few examples of some of the recent incidents that have taken in Rutgers.

Late last year, a microbiology Professor Michael Chikandas had shared a bunch of anti-semitic images and posts in his Facebook page. Rutgers President Robert Barchi, defended the Professor initially saying that he (the professor) was protected by the First Amendment, which promoted Free Speech. Thousands of students had actually signed a petition calling for his removal from the University, when he issued this statement. Instead, he said his primary concern was “does having posted that created an environment in his work that would compromise his ability to teach or to do research?”, and that it was an employment issue and not a hate speech issue!

Kevin Allred, an adjunct lecturer had posted anti-Trump and Gun control posts on Twitter in late 2016, after Trump won the elections. He was immediately apprehended by the New York police department and made to undergo a psychological evaluation in a hospital! He was then placed on administrative leave. How could he have questioned the gun laws that allow thousand of people to get killed in the U.S?

In another incident involving the same faculty a year earlier, a course that he had taught for many years on Beyonce as a symbol of Black feminism, got cancelled because “the University people where getting unnerved by ‘Black feminism’ ”, he says. So much for racial equality! The very popular course was suspended from 2015, in the garb that it was distracting students from other courses.

The University removed an art piece in the art library that involved a crucified Jesus on a dartboard with 4 darts. There have been far worse art works in other Universities. But Rutgers couldn’t help itself in letting go of its Christian roots and had to take down the art piece. Of course there is nothing wrong with its action if the University believed that the art piece offended the Christian faith. But then it should also give the same respect to other religions. Shouldn’t it? Which brings us to Audrey.

When she published her book on Aurangzeb, last year, Hindus of course blasted her on her twitter. After all, the Jews had one Hitler; we Hindus have had a series of Hitlers since the Islamic invasion of India. It is a well-known fact about how Aurangazb committed genocide on Hindus, Sikhs and Jains, killing them and destroying their temples. Her glorification of Aurangzeb is akin to some historian glorifying Hitler with alternative interpretations in 2250 A.D. Here she is defending Aurangzeb saying that she won’t judge him by modern standards.

So if in another 200 years will it be correct for someone else to justify Hitler? And extending the point, why wait for 200 years, its more than 75 years since he died, is it fine for people to justify Hitler with the pre WW2 standards. After all, there were many conditions that led to Hitler coming into power, starting from the World War I, which could easily be justified. But she gets away glorifying such an evil man.

And surprise, surprise, the University also came to her rescue. They published an article, where they defend her, going on to say that, “Modern Hindu-nationalists, meanwhile, saw the political value in perpetuating the conflict and have done so with great success.” Meaning that the modern Hindus are to be blamed and that Aurangzeb and the Muslims, who defend his actions, are the victims.

And of course as with every Western news outlet the University also had to publish this statutory ‘warning’ about the Indian PM: ‘Modi, first as Chief Minister of Gujarat and then as India’s Prime Minister, has been accused of condoning, and some would say stoking, anti-Muslim sentiment and violence along the way.’ Will the same University issue such a warning whenever Geroge W Bush’s name is mentioned? : “Bush, has been accused of invading Iraq in the pretext of Weapons of Mass Destruction that were never found, which lead to the killing of thousands of families, creating instability and later to one of the most vilest terrorist organization called ISIS”. Or will the University follow suit with a warning on Obama, ‘who stoked anti-government riots in the middle east that led to the deaths of thousands’? No. The university would never do that.

While it is a customary in any article with even a bit of journalistic standard, to include the opinion of the ‘other side’, in this article by the university only Audrey’s opinions are published. Not a single byte from the protesters who were protesting her book. I mean, we are more than a billion people here. I’m sure if they had tried some guy or girl who knew English would’ve responded to their reason for protest. But the University chose not to take any such step, which only makes their intention clear: the abuse of Hindus and Hindu culture is acceptable, by the way of supporting their faculty.

So coming back to this recent issue of her ‘#Ramayangate’ (yes, that is how she calls it, with absolutely no remorse. Hindus and their Gods is a joke to her), she agrees that she based her claim on loose colloquial translations.

Yes, there are many colloquial translations. But every one of them is based on Valmiki Ramayana, which is the oldest (and has the final authority), and no such words or meaning could be found in it. I wonder if she will use a colloquial translation of Quran or the Bible in one of her articles or tweets. And then she goes on to justify her tweets saying that she doesn’t have any spiritual insight into the work, but that she has relevant knowledge on the language!

What knowledge is she talking about? It is the rule for any and every person who wants to acquire the knowledge of Hindu spiritual texts to go to a Guru (probably from an established Sampradaya) and then learn under their guidance. If you don’t do that, then you don’t have the knowledge, so stop claiming that you have the knowledge of the language. Even an uneducated person from the most backward village will be able to tell the essence and the moral of these epics. What right does Audrey have to comment on something that she is not just aware of, but also averse to?

She answers straight away through another tweet.

She seems to deftly promote this article by an African scholar (rightly or wrongly) who argues that ancestral connection is not needed to grasp the history of African art. And therein lies her reason and her defense: That one doesn’t need to have any emotional and spiritual connection with the religious topics they are dealing with as long as they are related to India, Hinduism and Hindu Gods. Would she ever deal Islam with the same approach? Let us see.

Notice the word ‘sacred’ when it involves Islam. Ramayana is not sacred, but of course the religion of her Mughal hero is definitely so. She can make fun of our Itihaasas, our Gods, our heroes in any way she can.

(There is a whole set of tweets where she is making fun of Hindu scriptures and Itihaasas).

Here is her hypocrisy that gets laid bare with no less uncertainty. She accepts that what she wrote is a loose translation. So it is clear that whatever she had ascribed to have come from Devi Sita’s mouth were her own words which she directs towards Lord Rama. Hence it is most certainly Audrey who is saying that Lord Rama is a misogynist and uncouth. But we just saw her declare that she ‘declines’ to judge Aurangzeb by modern standards’. Hence for her, it is fair to judge Lord Rama and put him down as a misogynist whereas it is a sin to judge Aurangzeb . Now, we clearly have the evidence for the slant of her scholarship.

So now the question before the Rutgers University administration is whether, under the pretext of the First Amendment and Freedom of Speech, they are going to allow a known Hinduphobe, a constant Hindu abuser and a glorifier of a genocidal maniac to continue to work in their institution. It becomes particularly important because there is a large growing voice in U.S universities to have more diversity and more respect for people of all religions and culture. And Audrey’s tweets, her disposition and her scholarship completely betrays this voice. For the University in allowing her to continue, will be seen as endorsing Hinduphobia over Islamophobia, anti-semitism, homophobia etc. and authenticating that use of phobia to hurt the feelings of literally hundreds of millions of people of a faith, with the use of lies. It will raise questions on the intentions and the integrity of the scholars , who take liberty on loose translations and the institution that employs them. It will also raise questions on the nature of the scholarship that these scholars seem to posses and whether they lead to White Supremacy and racial hatred.

I do hope, in spite of my skepticism, that the Rutgers University administration will see this in the proper light and take actions against her, who with her words has deeply wounded millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs and Indians Worldwide.