Guest guest Posted January 5, 2004 Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 The Hindu's News update: 1/5/04 http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/00405183011.htm Regional Maharashtra: Mob ransacks research institute, 70 held Pune, Jan. 5. (PTI): An angry mob allegedly owing allegiance to "Sambhaji Brigade" of Maratha Mahasangh, `destroyed' thousands of rare manuscripts and other priceless articles at the acclaimed Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute here, to protest 'disparaging' remarks by a foreign author about Chhatrapati Shivaji, police said. Seventy people were arrested in this connection and charged under various sections of IPC, police said adding that the mob also took away several rare books. A mob of about 150 people came in vehicles and barged into the institute, snapped telephone lines, ransacked the cupboards, tore thousands of books and badly damaged writings on palm leaves, rare artefacts and old photographs. The mob was protesting against objectionable remarks by author James Lane, renowned Maratha warrior Chhatrapathi Shivaji in his book 'Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India'. It damaged the Mahabhartiya department, manuscript department, publication department and Postgraduate Teaching and research of the institute, founded on July 6, 1917 to commemorate the work of Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar. The mob also damaged computers, xerox machines, furniture, reference index cards and several things having priceless value. In detail: http://ww1.mid-day.com/news/city/2004/january/73054.htm (with photo of destruction) cf: http://www.indiaexpress.com/news/regional/maharashtra/20040105-0.html Luckily, I filmed some of their MSS years ago, when they still allowed that... Such restrictions always work against the institution that imposes them: QED ========= See further on S. Bahulkar's minimal help for Lane and the recent, resultant attack (blackening Bahulkar's face) by Shiv Sena: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/385627.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/385626.cms Quote: "not a single scholar or professor in the University of Pune condemned the attack on Bahulkar. " -- clearly inviting more violence (as above) ========== It should be clear now why Motilal (recently) and now Oxford Univ. Press (India) have chickened out: Threats, physical violence and censureship are thriving... (Remember the OUP resistance against NCERT's scrapping of 2 books on the struggle for independence? Or the more recent case of banning DN Jha's 'Holy Cow'?) Happily, now I (and others) can also expect to get my face blackened because I sent Jha some information, on his request... "Bring them on!" MW ============================================================ Michael Witzel Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University 1 Bow Street, Cambridge MA 02138, USA ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages) home page: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 6, 2004 Report Share Posted January 6, 2004 As a frequent user of the BORI in 1996-97 and also its lifetime member, I am shocked beyond words at the destruction of our heritage by hoodlums who claim to be defending it. I had thought of visiting Pune next month, but now I do not have the courage to do so. Luckily, I had photocopied some rare books in their collection earlier. Incidents such as these are becoming common day by day. In 2002, the Marxist Unions destroyed about 50 books in the 'Rare Books' area of the National Library at Kolkata during a 'strike' as a 'token protest'. And this was not a unique incident. I was seeking a microfilm of a book known to exist in only 1 copy (published in 1868), and almost gave up, when they actually found it (with first 4 pages missing) and microfilmed it for me. It is matter of time that my microform will be the only copy that survives, and so I should perhaps hasten to make duplicates! Amusingly, the book itself was thought to be lost for decades and was traced for me only through the intervention of a veteran Marxist scholar! I am hoping against hope that somehow the books and manuscripts can still be restored, at least partially. Perhaps, their leaves were scattered, and can be put in order together. Perhaps, the cracked leaves can be taped, glued together once gain. The entire episode is so disheartening. Having seen the vast collection of their books, and a portion of their manuscripts - many of them not available in no western library, the loss can simply never be evaluated in financial terms.I personally find it also equally, unbelievably barbarian that someone could humiliate Dr Bahulkar, who, through mutual contacts, is known to be a thorough gentleman (besides the fact that he is one of the leading scholars of India) and completely apolitical. The BORI is one of the better managed institute, where at least one could do quiet study and research with the help of the staff there. Otherwise, what happened in a matter of 1 hr in BORI happens at a slower pace in so many research institute in India - manuscripts thrown haphhazardly in gunnybags, newly created microforms 'missing'.... The government must really put in serious effort to educate my countrymen to realize the worth of our heritage, of which art pieces, manuscripts, icons, inscriptions etc., are such an important part. This is also one of the Directive Principles of State Policy of the Indian Constitution (just as the cow slaughter ban is). The junglees who went on a rampage at BORI perhaps do not even realize that they have severely damaged our heritage which they pretend to be protectors of! But then, GOI has been spending more money to create floors of Russian language books in the JNU library, than in conserving rotting manuscripts. Things are changing though, and I hope it is not too late. See more below - indology, "Mi. Witzel" <witzel@f...> wrote: >to protest 'disparaging' remarks by a foreign author about > Chhatrapati Shivaji, police said. VA: The whole issue is vitiated by the extreme politicization of history in India. Unfortunately, people who object to it the loudest (like the former NCERT textbook writers) are the ones who have misused political power most for their excesses. Sitting from afar, with these people as their sole informants, Indologists in the west may have a totally skewed view of the ground reality. The Maratha Mahasangha which apparently spearheaded this attack, is an old organization, with a history of anti-Brahminism. Is it even a part of the Hindutva parivar? To my knowledge, no. In this scheme of things, any scriptural learning such as that carried out at BORI, is denounced as 'KOBRA' (derogatory nickname for Konkanastha Brahmanas) scheming and Brahminism. These tendencies are strongly supported by the Leftists and Church in Maharashtra, who have always opposed government grants to such institutions in the first place. And if anything, the Maratha community strongholds are bastion of 'secular' Congress-I in Maharashtra. Therefore, when I read some Indologists' explanations of this incident as a manifestation of Hindu fundamentalism, I am merely amused. > A mob of about 150 people came in vehicles and barged into the institute, > snapped telephone lines, ransacked the cupboards, tore thousands of books > and badly damaged writings on palm leaves, rare artefacts and old > photographs. VA: It is sad but a fact that R N Dandekar, well known to and an admirer of Indologists in Europe and N America, procrastinated the digitization of these manuscripts and computerization of the primitive systems at the institute for such a long time. Perhaps it was already too late when he realized the benefits of these things. My own queries (through friends) about their CDs with Vedic Bibliography volumes etc., have NEVER been responded by the institute, so much so that finally, just two days back, I asked my friends to order the 5 hard copy volumes of the work for me! > Luckily, I filmed some of their MSS years ago, when they still allowed that... > Such restrictions always work against the institution that imposes them: QED VA: And just consider that BORI is actually one of the more 'open' institutes! In places such as Rajasthan, unless you have good contacts, you would never be allowed even to see the manuscripts where they may just rotting away. I hope you had filmed Buhler's manuscripts at BORI. > > See further on S. Bahulkar's minimal help for Lane and the recent, > resultant attack (blackening Bahulkar's face) by Shiv Sena: > > http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/385627.cms > http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/385626.cms > > Quote: "not a single scholar or professor in the University of Pune > condemned the attack on Bahulkar. " > -- clearly inviting more violence (as above) VA: That is sad. See above as well. Lumpen elements have existed in the University of Poona for at least the last 15 years. The 70 year old chairman of my department was pushed out of a car, the VC was slapped....All this during 1898-93 when I was a student there. I did resent the fact however that while I, an Indian, was not allowed free access to even their library (and had to rely on their primitive and incomplete card system), any foreigner could easily do so - brown sahibism in the action? The marginalization of such a wonderful institute also owes in part to the apathy of 'secular' historians who have really no use at all for its treasures, except when they need to churn out political pamphlets disguised as dispassionate scholarship. > > ========== > > It should be clear now why Motilal (recently) and now Oxford Univ. Press > (India) have chickened out: > > Threats, physical violence and censureship are thriving... VA: Censorship thrives in the west as well. The contrary view expressed verbally by many Indians is that OUP will never publish anything that presents Hinduism in a positive manner, and that they have deep relationships with Marxist authors instead. Let me leave it at that. As for the book by MLBD, Courtright's text was thoroughly obscene. A review of it has been written my me and a friend and is available at http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/emory_further_reading.htm Parts 3-5 of this review will also be published soon. I know at least 2 people who have been told by their academic advisors in reputed US Universitites that they cannot graduate unless they make their thesis less positive sounding about Hinduism or Hindu organizations. So much for academic freedom in the west! What happens openly in India aso happens in the west in a subtle way. > > (Remember the OUP resistance against NCERT's scrapping of 2 books on the > struggle for independence? VA: The books were by ICHR, not NCERT. The authors had violated the protocol by approaching OUP directly, when the director of ICHR should have done it instead. And OUP was hand in glove with Marxist historians Pannikkar and Sarkar, which it demonstrated by leaking confidential letters from the institute to the public. The book in question as such devoted much space to 'prove' that Marxists were in the forefront of the Indian Independence movement, when in reality they actively collaborated with the British in the early 40's. So the protests of the authors were not just some objective, dispassionate pleas. They were political sloganeering. Anyway, the OUP itself fired erring employees for these leaks and for violation of protocol. One of the authors (Pannikkar) was actually appointed the Vice Chancellor of AdiShankara Sanskrit University in Kerala because of his Communist affiliations despite the fact that he holds Hinduism in contempt. Needless to say, the University went down the dumps under his leadership. The same Indologists in the US who signed petitions to support him over the ICHR issue kept quiet when he was appointed the VC of a Sanskrit Univ by the Communist state government of Kerala! Or the more recent case of banning DN Jha's > 'Holy Cow'?) VA: The book was NOT banned. Rather Hindu-Jain groups, using constitutional provisions, approached courts and got a on its publication. As far as I know, the stay order was removed by our judiciary, and I have seen the British (Verso, Left Books imprint) and Indian editions of the book. > > Happily, now I (and others) can also expect to get my face blackened > because I sent Jha some information, on his request... "Bring them on!" VA: Well, that will not happen fortunately because you are not well known in India (except in Marxist circles) and no one reads your works in India. Were you totally oblivious of the political connections of Comrade D N Jha and political undertones of his book before you helped him with the book? I do not think Laine's work on Shivaji had no political undertones. It is rather a part of the political trend, started by Indian Marxists, that there was no Hindu and no Muslim in pre-British India. Interestingly, a Marxist professor of Kerala (known merely for his book on Manuscriptology) who has 'Foreword' to his books written by EMS Namboodiripaad (the veteran communist leader who supported China in the 1962 invasion) is now alleging that the destroyed manuscripts at BORI will be replaced by Hindu nationalists with faked ones that speak of discovered Sarasvati river! Anyway, bestial attacks on Professors and Institutes can be stopped by taking firm action against their perpetrators. Destruction of our heritage by these hoodlums simply unacceptable and these wannabee deshabhaktas are actually rashtradrohis. Vishal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.