It is not about Rajiv Malhotra

Let me begin with a disclaimer. I have immense respect for Rajiv Malhotra’s for his invaluable contribution to Indic studies.

Most of us who try to keep themselves updated on current affairs would be aware of a storm which has broken out over Rajiv Malhotra’s alleged plagiarism of work authored by others, most notably in his book ‘Indra’s Net’.

For the uninitiated, Rajiv Malhotra is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a champion of the need for Hindus to define and interpret Hinduism. He has authored powerful articles and books, arguing that Indic studies are managed by a cabal of western academicians who insist on studying Hinduism from western cultural lenses and worse, insist on providing an interpretation, which is completely divorced from the reality a practitioner experiences.

For those at the receiving end of Mr Malhotra’s ire, he is but a gadfly, a wannabe scholar who wishes to gate-crash into that exclusive Brahminical club of scholars who have an impressive list of academic qualifications behind them.

Yet, unlike many others who had made similar attempts in the past to reclaim Hinduism, but had failed to gain much traction, Rajiv Malhotra could not be ignored by his detractors. Not encumbered by lack of finances, Mr Malhotra tasted blood (and won a legion of followers) with his seminal essay on Hinduism studies by western scholars – RISA Lila Parts 1 and 2. In due course of time, Mr Malhotra authored books, some with eminent names in the field of Indology, others with upcoming scholars. In all, he ensured that he was a hated but still a presence, which could not be ignored when Hinduism studies were being discussed.

Given the ‘esteem’ which Mr Malhotra commands in Indology circles, it was hardly surprising that allegations of his plagiarising works of others’ made his detractors delirious with joy. Wasting little time, the internet was awash with articles on how this charlatan’s frauds had been unearthed. Petitions were floated, asking Harper Collins to withdraw the book and little known journalists had a field day attempting to discredit Rajiv Malhotra and the entire genre of Hinduism studies associated with him.

After initial shock, when even right-leaning commentators condemned Rajiv Malhotra for his alleged acts of plagiarism, his supporters rallied around him. Mr Malhotra hit back through a series of articles and tweets, Madhu Kishwar floated a petition which soon raced to over 10,000 endorsements, while fellow travellers like Sankrant Sanu and Rajeev Balakrishnan extended their support.

Interestingly, the viciousness of attacks on Rajiv Malhotra only serve to corroborate his arguments that Hinduism studies are inherently biased and that an incestuous cabal of academicians, rooted in western ways, probably serving an insidious agenda, tend to guard their turf a little too zealously. It is they who decide, whether the ‘other’ is worthy enough to merit their attention and whether, what the ‘other’ professes, even if backed by decades of self-realisation, is good enough to pass their tests of ‘academic rigour’ 

In the given case, plagiarism was alleged by Richard Fox Young, who wrote to Harper Collins, the publisher to pulp the book, apologise and refund money to all those who had purchased the book in the first place. Soon, the usual suspects like Ananya Vajpayi rallied around Mr Young and floated a petition, which on last count had some less than 250 supporters.

An analysis of the purported plagiarism revealed them to be instances of sloppy referencing, i.e., while it was acknowledged that Prof Andrew Nicholson’s book ‘Unifying Hinduism’ had been referred to, endnotes provided, and many citations properly referenced, some were missed out and for some, while endnotes had been provided, the quotation was not indicated as a ‘quote’.

Normally, such cases are treated as what they are, i.e., sloppy referencing. A simple way to deal with it would have been to highlight it, ridicule Malhotra for the gaps and ask the misses to be corrected.

But no, these were treated as ‘proofs’ of Rajiv Malhotra’s intellectual dishonesty and the shallowness of his books and arguments. For such ‘crimes’, there was only one possible punishment, absolute banishment of the individual and his thoughts from any scholarly realm.

This is where many, who otherwise felt that Mr Malhotra should have accepted the gaps gracefully and re-issued a revised version, decided to stand in solidarity with him. The attack on Mr Malhotra was not an attack on the individual. It was a concerted attack on the very idea that Hindus needed to have a voice on how Hinduism is presented in the academia, that foreign scholars do not ‘own’ the scholarship of Hinduism, that practice and study can be an equal if not a stronger substitute for academic degrees (that too, of the ‘right’ kind).

One of the many ways in which sundry columnists mocked Mr Malhotra was their questioning of his academic credentials. Interestingly, the very same people who claimed that Mr Malhotra was no scholar, had no qualms in recognising Richard Fox Young as a respected scholar, when he is a theologian from a Christian seminary in the town of Princeton. So, a person who writes on Hinduism after having lived his life as a Hindu, and after years of study and analysis is not respectable enough but a person dealing with theology of an alien religion is respectable enough to question Mr Malhotra?

This is hardly surprising given that the left has consciously claimed that the right does not have intellectuals. How can the right have any intellectuals, when the left declares anyone on the right to be a non-intellectual? When works of even a Jadunath Sarkar or BB Lal get dismissed as trash, what hope does a Sita Ram Goel, a Dharampal or a Rajiv Malhotra can have to be accepted by the left? Like the case of Richard Fox Young shows, the left will declare any Tom, Dick or Harry an intellectual as long as they parrot the official line. It is not without reason that a cricket historian like Ramchandra Guha gets recognised as a modern historian and a travel writer with limited academic qualification in Indian history, like William Dalrymple, gets recognised as an authority on India. It will only be the left which will consider an economist like Amartya Sen to be the most eminent person suited to re-establish an ancient University of learning. If, tomorrow, Rajiv Malhotra has a change of heart and becomes a protégé of Sheldon Pollock school of Indology, his very same detractors are likely to hail him as the next best thing in Indology.

For argument’s sake, let us agree for a moment that Rajiv Malhotra did indeed lift passages from Andrew Nicholson and others with intent to plagiarise. Would that, in itself, rob Mr Malhotra’s works of all merit? If not, then why is there so much of clamour to dismiss all of his work, and worse, all his theories? It is only the security which an incestuous cocoon provides, which can prompt Prof Wendy Doniger (the one who can make kinky sex interpretations of even a cow grazing peacefully) to joyously claim that ‘Mr Malhotra does not know anything of the subjects he writes on’. Quite rich coming from someone whose each book is a minefield of errors, faulty assumptions, wrong interpretations, and simply put, nonsensical conclusions! 

Certainly, Mr Malhotra’s conduct in the entire state of affairs could have been better. While the allegations around plagirasim of Andrew Nicholson can be treated as sloppy referencing and the one claim on lifting of a line from Swami Krishananda can be dismissed outright, there still are some issues around non-referencing of works of Shrinivas Tilak in Indra’s Net. Whatever Mr Malhotra may claim now, he has not been very kind to even those on this side of the fence, who he believed, had plagiarised from him. 

Second, his act of first calling Andrew Nicholson an ally, then to claim that he was a mediocre scholar and that Unifying Hinduism was a sub-standard work and that he would be removing all citations from the revised version of the book, seems to be a case of childish pique. Maybe he had no option left, driven the wall, the way he way by Nicholson. Yet, one cannot call a book ‘brilliant’ while referencing and then claim it to be ’sub-standard’.

The world of Indological studies is weird. In any scientific discipline, discoveries or inventions by amateurs are not dismissed by scientists simply because of a lack of ‘adequate’ and ‘kosher’ academic qualification of the amateur. Astronomy in particular, has been made quite rich by amateurs and the scientific community has recognised those contributions by naming galactic bodies in their honour. Even those disciplines, which fall in between humanities and sciences, like archaeology, have respected contribution of amateurs. Then what is so different about Indology that the existing power structure allows entry of only a certain ‘type’ of people? Under the current structure, a book by a Shankaracharya, (who would have spent all his years studying scriptures) on a Dharmashastra, would not be considered ‘scholarly’ but some interpretation of a translated work by a non-Hindu in some university, when guided by one of Wendy’s children, would be considered authoritative. This power anomaly ensures that the interpretations of Sanskrit, made by, say Pandits of Maths, who have spent long years in study of scriptures in their original language, carry zero weight but the words of a Wendy Doniger, who doesn’t know the difference between even ‘Asakti’ and ‘Anasakti’ get treated as gospel.

Many like to claim that Indian right-wing, unlike that in the west, does not have intellectuals. The reason why the west has recognised right-wing intellectuals is that the right-wing created its own ecosystem. Aware that the left would never accord respect due to them, they bypassed it and created a movement powerful enough to be taken note of and formally recognised. Unfortunately for India, such a situation is nowhere near possible. Such ecosystems require political support and even the allegedly Hindu governments in India have little time for Hindu scholars.

It is a rare occasion that a publisher makes unsubstantiated allegations against an author unconnected to them. But when Permanent Black did precisely that, you know that you cannot let down someone who has been on the forefront of the struggle to reclaim Hinduism studies.

Two events, fracas over Wendy Doniger’s horrible book and Rajiv Malhotra’s alleged plagiarism, have only served to highlight the need for Hindus to reclaim scholarship on Hinduism.

It is no 'Alternative'

“This book is cleverly and powerfully written. The carefully chosen quotations give it the false appearance of a truthful book. But the impression it leaves on my mind is that it is the report of a drain inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country to be reported upon, or to give a graphic description of the stench exuded by the opened drains. If Miss Mayo had confessed that she had come to India merely to open out and examine the drains of India, there would perhaps be little to complain about her compilation. But she declared her abominable and patently wrong conclusion with a certain amount of triumph: 'the drains are India'.”

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – on Katherine Mayo’s Mother India

Katherine Mayo was an American researcher and historian. Her fame or rather infamy in India rests with her magnum opus ‘Mother India’ in which she attacked the Hindu society and religion, alluding to the treatment of its women, the Harijans (as known then), the animals, the dirt and the character of its politicians. As was expected, the British welcomed and enthusiastically propagated the book. Even more expectedly, the book outraged Indians and over fifty books/pamphlets were penned in response. Some of these highlighted the gross errors and inaccuracies in the book while others sought to denounce the ‘conclusions’ of Mother India on more polemical grounds.

Unfortunately, Ms Mayo’s work proved to be a powerful influence on the American view of India. A simple testimony to it would be the fact that Mother India is known even today and hardly any of its rebuttals elicit any recall.

Katherine Mayo was neither the first nor the last foreigner who looked at India and the Hindu society with suspicion and disdain. While the Indian society will remain indebted to those who discovered and propagated the wealth of Indian thought, we, as a Nation, cannot but ignore the immense damage the numerous ‘drain inspectors’ have inflicted on our psyche and the way we are perceived by the ‘others’.

James Mill wrote an authoritative ‘The History of British India’ without ever visiting the country. Yet, this book, published in 1818 brought him fame as an expert on India and within a year, he was appointed to the India house. The book and his seventeen years of association with India effected a dramatic change in the way the Nation was perceived by the British and consequently, on how it was governed. No longer was the Hindu seen as a descendant of a noble and cultured race, now enslaved. It was declared "under the glosing exterior of the Hindu, lies a general disposition to deceit and perfidy.” (chapter titled General Reflections in 'Of the Hindus', The History of British India). It will not be an exaggeration to say that this highly influential work, particularly the section 'Of the Hindus' comprising ten chapters, played a huge part in cementing Indophobia and hostility to Orientalism.

Why so much of history?

Because history is repeating itself – both as a tragedy and a farce. The banshee like wailing over withdrawal of the book by Penguin India is turning bizarre and ‘bizarrer’. Not only have the protestors been labelled Taliban, Penguin’s act has been linked to the likelihood of the BJP coming to power. Some worthies have condemned it as being grievously harmful to Hinduism while others lament on how the protesters are not true Hindus ala their inability to live the liberal ethos of their religion

How much merit do these arguments have when the self proclaimed liberals declare this voluntary withdrawal a ban? How can their painting of book protestors as fascists be taken seriously when these protestors have engaged in a very civil, legal and constitutional mean of registering their protest?

Yet, since even the most well meaning may get swayed by magical wordsmithery of the Arundhati Roys and Ramachandra Guhas of the world, it will do good to analyse the ‘real’ arguments surrounding this controversy.

1. Prof Doniger is an academic. Academic works have to be accepted.

Do academic credentials provide immunity from inspection and criticism? Or is it rather that a tenured academician has a higher responsibility towards ensuring rigorous scientific enquiry before reaching conclusions?  

The criticism of ‘The Hindus...’ is based on its factual inaccuracies. Detailed chapter wise listing of these errors has been shared by many scholars/laypersons. Yet, Prof Doniger’s response to all criticisms has been a haughty ad hominem dismissal of the critics as Hindutva torchbearers. Even if all the critics were communalists, how does it validate Ms Doniger’s countless errors and inaccuracies? If we don’t have qualms in questioning and revisiting scriptures, which millions believe to be divine revelations, how can some output of a mere professor be above scrutiny?

2. The Hindus…’ is fruit of laborious labour. It provides an alternative view to the Hindu history

For a view-point to be seen as alternative, the original/mainstream must be known. What exactly is the original Hindu history as per Prof Doniger? Her book makes no reference to any such creature. It is her conclusions alone which are both the alternative and the mainstream!

The above statement may sound rhetorical. It is not, when you consider that the learned Prof uses twentieth and twenty first century ‘works’ to analyse Ramayana and Mahabharata.

3. Prof Doniger is being targeted because she is uncovering uncomfortable facts regarding our deities. She is being targeted for she is white.

KM Munshi’s stellar work, Krishnavatar narrates the life story of Krishna and the Pandavas. Though a devout Hindu (a revivalist and communalist as per the Marxist school), Munshi’s Krishna is not God. Iravati Karve declared Ramayana to be work of fiction and concluded that Yudhishthir was the son of Vidur through Niyoga. Recently, Amish Tripathi’s Shiva trilogy depicted a somewhat hippie like mortal as Shiva. Numerous texts, both ancient and medieval have commented and criticised gods over acts which are seen to have digressed from the path of Dharma. Yet, none of the above has been deemed offensive. It is because these alternative viewpoints stand subordinated to the spirit of enquiry and a general respect for the larger belief system.

Prof Diana Eck, another of the ‘white’ professors has been writing on Hinduism for long. Prof Eck too, has tried to analyse the roots of many practices of Hinduism. But, challenging her views might be, they are not offensive, if only because Prof Eck seeks reasoning and does not seem to be on a mission of invent and degenerate!

4. Hinduism has withstood numerous challenges over the last two millennium. How can a mere book harm it?

A three pronged answer to the above

One - The Hindu faith survived not because people comforted each other that it is too strong to be uprooted. It survived because across ages, great men and their followers took it upon themselves to defend their way of life and worship. At times, this meant taking up the role of missionary philosophers, at other times, military warriors, at times, bhakti saints and yet at some other times, social reformers.

Two – Works like ‘The Hindus…’ Kali’s Child or ‘Oh Terrifying Mother’ are not unique. Right from the time the missionaries identified India as the dark land, fit for an enormous harvest, many critiques of the Nation, its people, its faith, its culture have kept churning out with amazing frequency. But, even till the early twentieth century, each ‘Mother India’ had at least fifty responses. We do not have that luxury now. In fact, we don’t even need a Katherine Mayo to write another ‘Mother India’ for we have many Indians who will gladly do such hatchet jobs now.

Three – Our perception of self is to a large extent driven by how the others perceive us. The emerging ‘scholarship’ from the West, sired effectively by the likes of Wendy Doniger, Sarah Caldwell, Jeffery Kripal, et al and aided even more effectively by our own ‘useful idiots’, has successfully turned Hinduism studies as a study of the kinky, the exotic, the bizarre and the revolting. Works like ‘The Hindus…’ threaten the very space of practitioners for any attempt by the latter to correct the misrepresentations are denounced as fascism. It the invented ‘alternative’ becomes the mainstream, how exactly will the displaced original survive? If it sounds hyperbolic, just think of ‘Tantra’ in the western context. The immediate imagery is of ‘Tantrik sex’ and not of an alternate means of worship. How much respect will others have for Hindus if all their awareness of the faith is underlined by such abominations as ‘the red dot is symbolic of menstrual fluid’, ‘breaking of coconut is a proxy for human sacrifice’, ‘the handing over of a staff as the time of the sacred thread ceremony is symbolic of the father handing over his penis to his son’. This list can go on and on. Do people, or at least who believe, not have both a right and a duty to contest such portrayals of their faith?

Overall, ‘The Hindus…’ is just a ghastly work. It is a sad commentary on the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of some of our academicians that they are fighting for restitution of mischief and falsehoods.

PS

In a previous post, I had shared my views on why Prof Wendy Doniger’s – Hindus, An Alternative History is a bad book! In another post, I had commented on the Supreme Court upholding the ban on RV Bhasin’s book on grounds of social peace. In yet another post, I had expressed my anguish on the systemized muzzling of contrarian views. Hence, I have attempted not to repeat myself in the above note.