[Y-Indology] Conference on Indus Valley/Saraswati

[Guest guest]

Please see below -

 

INDOLOGY, "deshpandem" <mmdesh@U...> wrote:

> The attitudes of the NRI sponsors in these matters are rather

> pervasive. It is interesting to note that the NRI community (of

> which I am a member, and I hate the term NRI, because my

> relatives in India insist it means "Not-Required Indians")

 

VA: That is something new that I have heard. None of my relatives

have ever used NRI contemptuously with regard to me. So my own

experience contradicts yours.

 

feels

> that it is perfectly okay to be immigrants in the US, but the same

> community in its emotion cannot accept the possibility that their

> ancestors may as well have been immigrants in India hundreds

> of years ago.

VA: The possibility is rejected because of its colonial racist

missionary origins (these linkages are there even today) and because

no credible evidence exists to this day. Everything is possible but

what is really probable?

 

 

Many of my close friends in the Marathi community

> in Michigan have become more conservative in their own

> attitudes toward their own Hindu identity, not being able to cope

> with the unavoidable reality that half of the children in the

> immigrant community are marrying outside of their caste and

> regional Indian identity, and many going outside of the Hindu

> community and marrying Americans or others. The parents

> cannot do anything to prevent this new found freedom of the

> children. This is understandably stressful for the first

> generation Indian immigrants, who while remaining physically in

> the US, are emotionally becoming more Indian than the

> westernizing Indians back home in India.

 

VA: Again, that is contradicted by my own experience. The anectodal

evidences cited by you (and others such as Romila Thapar) to

caricaturize NRIs is often devoid of any scientifically collected

data and is based on gut feelings and personal experiences. In my own

case, I have actually become more 'westernized'. I was a teetollar

throught my life in India (even though my father was not and I was

allowed to do all these things after I turned 18), visited temples at

least once a week and on all festivals, did not sip water before a

bath and a prayer and so on. I do not do this now. The same applies

to cousins and Uncles and Aunts here, who have become more lax in

their religious observances. And also to most of my friends whom I

know. We are very secure in our identity and can do without such

caricaturing.

 

Therefore,

> community sponsorship of academic programs always runs the

> risk of the academic community not being able to satisfy the

> emotional needs and demands of the sponsor group. I know of

> a situation where an Indian community group offered a full

> endowment for a permanent chair to a university, but demanded

> that the university must appoint a person belonging to that

> community and acceptable to the community. This has caused

> a lot of headache, and the university may ultimately decide not to

> accept an endowment under such stipulations. The failure of the

> Hinduja initiative at Columbia University points to the same

> problem.

>

VA: The experience of Indian community with establishing chairs has

been very dismal. The case of Gerald Larson is often pointed out by

Rajiv Malhotra. One does encounter so many cases where Hinduism and

India are taught in a very negative fashion to students. So the

concerns of the NRI community are legitimiate though I wonder if

PIO/NRI scholars don't often do a better job at trashing their own

heritage in schools.

 

Vishal

[Guest guest]

Dear Madhavji,

This is a very poor description of NRIs and their behavior.

I would doubt your sample and reach. Every Sunday we run

an Indian cultural school here in Boston (www.shishubharati.org)

and about four hundred persons gather. The outlook is

very different that you present and so is in the Temple.

Indian identity is different than a Hindu identity.

I don't know much about fanatic Hindutvas and I realize

some small sector is available. Hindu is a poor substitute

for the traditions of India.

 

One could debate what could pass as India Studies and

how much bias and political thought could be ignored.

The threshold on this is reducig and I think it's a good

sign. For a long time arbitrary materials have been

produced in the name of scholarship and those have been

disservice to generations of students where our own

education was affected. Presently also there is

missionary media on "dalit", "untouchable", "caste"

and "dowry" as though Indian society is collapsing

and a "savior" is called for. This attentions makes

some defensive. People like you and others in the field

should help steer new research and more openminded analysis

on Indian thoughts and traditions. They must dispel

the falsehoods in the propaganda machine. The political

views of Hindutva are useless and have no scholarly value.

 

Best regards,

 

Bijoy Misra

[Guest guest]

Since judging from the recent emails this issue won't die, here is a

little more on Sandhya Jain's misreporting in _The Pioneer_ on the Long

Beach Conference on the Indus Valley. I have recently learned more

about her sources, which involve powerful figures in India indeed!

 

Jain tells us in her note responding to me (see the end of

Indology #4308) that her information on what supposedly happened (but

certainly didn't) at the Conference was based on "the letter written to

Dr Rajput of NCERT and also correspondence with Prof Shiva G Bajpai,

whom I have also written about."

 

She doesn't tell us what letter was "written to Dr Rajput of NCERT,"

but the fact that Rajput was her source makes the intention of her

misreported story very clear. J.S. Rajput is, of course, Director of

the Indian government's powerful National Council of Educational

Research and Training. Rajput's campaign in NCERT to shift India's

school curriculum in Hindutva directions through whatever means it

takes is well known.

 

Everyone interested in Indology (even comparative historians, like me),

or anyone interested in education in general -- we are talking about

1/5th of the world's school children -- should read Rajput's

astonishing preface to NCERT's official publication: "History in the

New NCERT Textbooks: Fallicies in the IHC Report." It is quite a piece!

 

To get Rajput's report, go to http://www.ncert.nic.in/frame.htm (the

official NCERT site). Then entitled "History in the

New NCERT Textbooks." Then click on the picture of the book on that

page to go to Rajput's preface.

 

An interview in rediff.com from 2001 with J.S. Rajput brings out his

personality rather clearly. Note especially his refusal to even _name_

back then the historians he had charged with rewriting India's history

textbooks! Absolutely unprincipled!:

 

http://www.geocities.com/hsitah9/ncert_controversy5.htm

 

Further on NCERT and Jain's misreporting of the Long Beach Conference:

I mentioned in my most recent post B.B. Lal's claims in his Long Beach

talk -- In the ONLY one of 15 lectures that even mentioned the word

"Aryans" -- concerning evidence Indus "spoked wheels," offered as

supposed proof that Vedic and Indus cultures were one. Lal's pictures

of "spoked wheels," in fact, turn out unambiguously to be spindle

whorls (well-known and easily identified Indus artifacts used in

spinning thread) that have radial lines drawn on them. (Designs like

this were common designs on spindle whorls in many dozens of premodern

civilizations, including some existing thousands of years before _any_

wheels, let alone spoked ones, existed; abundant evidence shown and

discussed on request.)

 

In any event, Lal's slick little pamphlet claiming that Indus spindle

whorls (are "spoked wheels" on "model chariots" is published by Dr

Rajput's NCERT, and is apparently aimed at Indian school children.

 

Since, despite its title, Lal's pamphlet for school children propagates

NEW myths rather than debunking old ones, perhaps Ms Jain, who is in

touch with Dr Rajput, could suggest that NCERT withdraw publication of

the pamphlet?

 

Steve Farmer

http://www.safarmer.com/downloads