Atlanta Hindus Respond to Wash Post Article

[Guest guest]

Thanks and regards,

Dhiru Shah

OPEN RESPONSE TO SHANKAR VEDANTAM'S ARTICLE

"U.S. SCHOLARS' WRITINGS INSPIRE HATRED IN INDIA

- HOSTILITY HAS RANGED FROM TOSSED EGGS TO

PROSECUTION"

IN WASHINGTONPOST.COM (DATED APRIL 10, 2004)

and

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4704957/

The Concerned Community Members

April 12, 2004

We commend Shankar Vedantam for trying to present a

balanced view of the controversies regarding the

portrayal of Hinduism in American academia. However,

his article contains several factual errors that are

corrected below:

Shankar Vedantam states that 'an Atlanta group wrote

to the president of Emory University asking that

Courtright be fired' - presumably quoting Courtright

or other Emory sources. It is interesting that

Courtright, who insolently declared to the Atlanta

media, "Do I have to get permission from 800 million

Hindus to write something?" should profess concern

about his job. No such demand has come from us - as

proven by the 200-page briefing booklet containing the

entire proceedings of the controversy submitted to

Emory University on February 18, 2004.  The Concerned

Community requested that Prof. Courtright should not

teach courses on Hinduism because students taking his

class may get a distorted introduction to Hinduism. As

Prof. Antonio de Nicolas, a scholar of Hinduism,

reiterated, "A scholar (teacher) who does not know how

to present other cultures by their own criteria should

not be allowed to teach those cultures." Under the

circumstances, we are naturally concerned about how

Hinduism is portrayed!

While Prof. Courtright has stated that he wrote the

book on Ganesha in 1985, he has conveniently remained

silent about the fact that it was reprinted in 2001

with a lewd cover picture of Shree Ganesha. His

argument that the 'book-jacket was neither seen nor

approved by him' does not stand up to scrutiny. Even

if one were to accept this hackneyed defense, Prof.

Courtright could have urged the publisher to

remove/replace the offensive cover of the book.

Several scholars have openly challenged Prof.

Courtright to a scholarly debate by publishing in

widely read, open-debate forums as well as writing to

him directly. But so far he has not offered any

scholarly rebuttal to the best of our knowledge. There

is no evidence of his entertaining honest criticism.

Instead, he plays the victim by claiming that he has

received "death threats", which appears to be nothing

more than a few rash statements posted on an unedited

student Internet petition site, apparently provoked by

Courtright's bigoted and ############ depiction of

Ganesha, Shiva, and Parvati in his book.

Another of Courtright?s oft-repeated defenses is that

his remarks about Ganesha were taken out of context.

This is an utterly false claim, as any reader of the

book can verify. The quotes in the Internet petition

accurately represented the content and context of four

out of six chapters of the book. His interpretation of

Ganesha lore is perverse and the anger it has

generated cannot be condemned under the pretense of

?academic freedom?.  Such shoddy scholarship cannot be

excused just because Courtright is a professor and has

a Ph.D. Lewd projections of a revered symbol, based on

a suspect analytical framework, should have no place

in scholarly discourse. 

Shankar Vedantam should perhaps have mentioned that

Courtright does not have the educational and

professional expertise to know that Freudian

psychoanalysis has long-since been discredited and

that it is gross academic malpractice to claim to

"psychoanalyze" religious icons or anything else

without supportive evidence.

Prof. Wendy Doniger shows her mastery in deflecting

criticism of her shoddy scholarship on Hinduism by

branding all those who criticize her works as 'Hindu

fundamentalists' and 'fanatical nationalists' who are

too ignorant and illiterate to read her writings. We

have read her and Courtright?s creations. Doniger's

own ?expertise? on Hindu lore is amply demonstrated by

her writing, twice, in her gushing Foreword to

Courtright's book, that Ganesha dictated the

Mahabharata to Vyasa -- something every Hindu knows to

be nonsense. Cowardly and destructive calumny is the

only defense that Doniger and her cohorts have, when

confronted with valid, factual, and scholarly

criticism of their work.

Even though the Concerned Community in Atlanta

approached Emory University regarding Prof.

Courtright?s work, we would also like to take issue

with a few other matters that Shankar Vedantam

presents.  For example, Prof. Laine has implied in his

book that Shivaji was a bastard child ? not that his

parents were estranged. He complains that 'no one in

Pune today will defend my book' without acknowledging

that this is because he has betrayed the trust of his

friends and colleagues who had helped and worked with

him. He probably has violated their innermost

cherished feelings about a national icon. Laine and

Courtright are professors of Religious Studies with no

formal credentials in history or psychoanalysis.

Salman Akhtar's statement that ?facts cannot be

interpreted? is both absurd and false. Facts are

interpreted every day in the real world. Wasn?t Dr.

Condoleezza Rice doing exactly that for three hours on

April 8, 2004 in front of the U.S. Commission on 9/11?

On what ?fact? did Laine base his assertion that

Shivaji'######## had sexual intercourse with anyone

other than his father?

The remarks by Dwarkanath Rao from Michigan about

Wendy Doniger again ignore the pointed proof presented

by Rajiv Malhotra and others about her poor

scholarship and tried to argue that her abuse of

Hinduism is driven by her ?love? of India.

We thank Shankar Vedantam for quoting Doniger?s

hilarious remark: ?It does not matter whether the

article published under my name was right or wrong.

The only important thing about it is that I wrote it

and someone Sharma did not?. This remark reveals her

condescending mindset much better than Dwarkanath

Rao's fawning praise does. Her writings in Encarta

were deservedly exposed and rejected. Her petulant and

dismissive reaction accurately demonstrates her

?scholarly credentials? and maturity.

Finally, please note that The Concerned Community (CC)

representatives in Atlanta, including four senior

professors (among them a practicing authority on

psychiatry), met Emory University officials on

February 18, 2004. We will be releasing a press

statement shortly and urge that you give it due

coverage.

For additional information please contact us at:

Concerned_Community

Thanking you,

Core Group:

Subash Razdan (Tel. 770-333-9781 after 7 p.m.)

Dhiru Shah (Tel. 770-664-8779)

Narayanan Komerath (e-mail : narayanan (AT) att (DOT) net)

Ram Sidhaye

K. K. Vijai

Basant Tariyal

Amitabh Sharma

Shreekumar Vinekar

Ramesh Rao

M. P..Rama

The Concerned Community