Re: [BEF] Francis Xavier Clooney : For Dr. Vijaya Rajiva's attention

[navaratna rajaramnavaratna]

 

    Good observation, but we can't really read what is going on in the mind of someone else. I know Clooney and I don't see him quite as a diehard Jesuist like De Nobili or Xavier. This is at least in part because the times have changed and such methods now would get him in trouble. I think people like him will be doubly careful now after the PR disaster following the cancellation of Swamy's courses.

 

    So he and others like him should not be overrated but treated as ordinary people with daily needs and concerns. This was true as much of Max Muller as Witzel. We elevated them by raising to a pedestal or making them larger than life monsters. Clooney or others like him have no right to tell us whether to politicize or not.

 

    Please see my article "Rise and Fall of Indology: From Max Muller to Witzel" on Google.

 

    The Hindu backlash and the message it has sent to Harvard is far more important than course cancellation or their restoration. They have exposed themselves and we must demolish Indology programs in the West, not debate them. I would no more 'engage' them in a debate than I would neo-Nazis.

 

    I am working on an article along these lines that I expect will be studied by Harvard and other universities.

 

N.S. Rajaram

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 7:02 AM, Nachiketa Tiwari <nachi...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

I think the "politicization" is the dimension of Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel's works, which is "problematic". One may critique anything, and that would be tolerable (by the 3M gang) to the extent it does not upset the power equations. So in this sense, Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel indeed **did** politicize. They tried to upset the political cart. And that is unpardonable sin. Clooney, if I read Rajiva's article correctly, is subtly warning Malhotra that he should refrain from "politicization".
 
nt
 

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From: rajaramn...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:41:18 -0500
Subject: Re: [BEF] Francis Xavier Clooney : For Dr. Vijaya Rajiva's attention

 

December 21, 2011

 

    On the whole a balanced cautionary article-- not to be taken in by Francis Clooney or his ilk. Malhotra is doing a commendable job educating the Hindus, and as he himself says getting Hindu spiritual leaders not to fall for the deception practiced by Church leaders in the guise of Interfaith Dialogue. Clearly, Malhotra should heed his own advice.

 

    I am intrigued by Clooney's criticism of Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel for 'politicizing' the dialog. I was close to these gentlemen for a decade and their 'politicization' was nothing but exposing Christianity and Islam as expansionist political movements without any spiritual content. For this reason they would never have made the error of comparing Vedanta and Christian teachings.

    Also, Ram Swarup and Goel would never have sought out someone like Clooney-- Christian theologians came to them for consultation (like Raimundo Panikkar, a much greater scholar than Clooney). They also knew Sanskrit which allowed them to go to the original sources.

 

    When it comes to Vedanta, the most trenchant critic of revealed cults (like Christianity and Islam) was Acharya Madhva (1238 - 1317), who was probably the greatest metaphysician India ever produced (see his Tattva-Viveka). He applied a very simple criterion: they are paurusheya or human creations, hence fallible and prone to deception. In his Vishnu-tattva Nirnaya Madhva cautioned against prophetic claims:

 

     "Never accept as authority the word of any human (purusha). Humans are subject to ignorance and deception. No paurusheya text can be taken as authoritative by attributing infallibility to any human. One deludes oneself in believing that such a purusha -- infallible and free of deceit -- ever existed and he alone was the author of the text."

 

     But this is precisely the claim made for the Quran and the Bible-- they are the infallible word of God conveyed through the human medium or 'God Substitute' in Ram Swarup's words. When I brought this to the attention of Sita Ram he was surprised that a Hindu thinker had come up with this critique centuries before Maharshi Dayananda.

 

    On the whole I am happy to see such informed debate. But we need to go more into the original texts also.

 

N.S. Rajaram

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 9:02 PM, S. Kalyanaraman <kaly...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.com/2011/12/francis-xavier-clooney-building-trojan.html

20.12.11

Francis Xavier Clooney : Building the Trojan Horse -- Dr. Vijaya Rajiva

Francis Xavier Clooney : Building the Trojan Horse

20/12/2011 13:49:23 Dr. Vijaya Rajiva

Time was when the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus established in 1539 by St.Ignatius of Loyola) used every method to establish the ascendancy of Catholic Christianity over the globe. Hindu India will remember the infamous Goa Inquistion (1560)conducted by the followers of St. Francis Xavier (said to be among the founders of the Jesuit order) against the hapless Hindus of Goa. Francis Xavier was also a founding member of the Society of Jesus and also the initiator of the Inquisition (1545) Everything ranging from ferocious torture to murder and mayhem were practiced in Goa (and elsewhere during the Inquisition) all in the name of the Holy Church. The book Breaking India (2011) by authors Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan also writes about the first of the Jesuits in India, Robert di Nobili (came to Goa in 1605 and settled in Tamil Nadu in 1606) who , in addition to claiming to be a scholar of Tamil, did not hesitate to fulminate against the paganism of the Hindus. The goal of Christianity in India has never changed : convert the Hindu pagans, harvest their souls, as the Pope said publicly in India. His comment was : in the first millennium Christianity spread to Europe, in the second millennium it spread to the Americas, and in the third millennium it will complete its mission in Asia. Since much of south east Asia has become Christianised, India alone remains unconverted. The present writer believes that this will remain so thanks to the devotion of the aam admi Hindus to their ancestral religion and thanks to the spiritual strength of the traditional acharyas, gurus, maths and so on. 

Hence, the attempt of the Jesuit order to woo the elite of India is another aspect of their strategy. The days of large scale conquests and violence are over. The soldiers of Christ are heavily into the phenomenon known as inculturation, started by Italian Jesuit Roberto di Nobili himself, the borrowing of native cultural habits and practices and in general ingratiating themselves into local culture. This inculturation was intended to subvert the native cultures by stealth. An example would be di Nobili wearing saffron instead of white and using Hindu words to describe Christian rituals and so on. And now, Hindu-Christian dialogue (one wonders what the purpose of this dialogue is).

An important aspect of the Jesuit order which needs to be mentioned : their commitment to scholarship. Francis Xavier Clooney represents that branch. He is a Jesuit, an accomplished scholar of comparative religion and has published several books and articles. He is currently a professor at the Divinity school at Harvard University (USA). He has impressed many Hindus by his knowledge of Tamil and the bhakti religious tradition of Tamil Hindus. Neverthless, as a Jesuit and as a dedicated Christian his innermost and first priority is the conversion of pagan Hindus to Catholicism. Needless to say this is never openly talked about. The goal of the Jesuits(and of Christianity as a proselytizing faith) has never changed, despite the change in methods. Dr.Clooney is heavily into the process of inculturation. This is made possible by many intellectual Hindus who have been drawn into what is called interfaith dialogue.

This was evident in the interfaith dialogue (so called) in which Dr.Clooney participated, along with author/writer Rajiv Malhotra. This took place at the University of Massachussetts during the talks on Malhotra’s new book Being Different(2011) After Shri Malhotra’s talk on his book, which lasted approximately 30 minutes, Dr.Clooney followed up with an approximately 45 minute talk mainly focused on Malhotra’s book Being Different. This book, according to the author, is about a game changer. Instead of being the object of Western scholars, Hindus must now view the West and the Judaeo Christian tradition from the Hindu dharmic point of view. This is in itself not a novel idea and whether the contents have been appropriately handled will remain a question mark.

.
After Malhotra’s lecture, Clooney took the podium and the spectacle was extremely illuminating to any discerning viewer. Clooney’s strategy was to heap high praise( a euphemism for fulsome flattery !) on Malhotra, who during his own comments on Clooney’s talk, agreed with him ! Clooney as mentioned above is a well trained scholar and Rajiv Malhotra was no match for him, in a sense. The range of Clooney’s intellectual cogitation was impressive both for its subtlety and its delicate handling of contentious issues.

In addition , his manner was courteous, soft spoken and well spoken (beware of the Greek who comes bearing gifts !).

Some samples of the exchange between the two men are revealing:

Clooney : This is not the first time that Hindus have looked critically at the West. Swami Dayananda Sarasvati and Swami Vivekaanana did that. However, Rajiv has updated this in a sophisticated manner (read ‘improved’ on it, with the former being unsophisticated Hindus !).

Rajiv Malhotra was obligingly silent, presumably he agreed with this remark. He must believe that he is an improvement on Swami Dayananda and Swami Vivekananda ! Since liberal theorists in India such as Jyotirmaya Sharma have written sneeringly about them, the least that Malhotra could have done was to modestly insert some remark about their great contribution to Hindu nationalism and the ongoing resurgence of Hindu thinking, not to mention their profound spirituality and writings on Hinduism) But that would go against Clooney’s agenda. To resume.

Clooney : Authors such as Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goyal have politicized the Hindu Christian relationship. Rajiv does not do that. He is respectful of the differences and shows understanding (one can guess at Clooney’s target : authentic Hindus who resist Christian conversion methods !)

Rajiv Malhotra : I am not interested in ‘ politicization’. I am interested in knowledge systems (By this time any discerning listener must surely wonder where he is going with all this ready agreement with Clooney. What does this remark mean except that it is a hit at Hindu nationalism ? Or at Hindutva ? The intellectual and spiritual errors involved in this distancing of himself from both need to be pointed out).

In that one statement Malhotra distanced himself from the aam admi Hindu and Hindu nationalism. There were also some slighting references to the ignorance of Hindu gurus regarding Western thought. His eagerness to secure Francis Clooney’s endorsement for his book Being Different was all too obvious. It was also clear that the magic of the Jesuit’s flattery was working on him, slowly but surely.

This raises the question of why the intrepid author of the book Breaking India (2011) was doing his own version of a u turn. That book clearly documents the insidious workings of Christian missionaries in India. It speaks about the first Jesuit Roberto di Nobili’s infamous methods. It talks about inculturation and so on. It recognizes quite explicitly that since the time of Max Mueller (the indologist) , the chosen enemy for Christianity was Hinduism .

Ofcourse, the authenticity and strength of the book Breaking India also come from the fact that the co author Aravindan Neelakandan is a Tamilian and is knowledgeable about Tamil history, which constitutes a large part of the book.

Mr. Malhotra is economically independent and has over a period of time in the Hindu diaspora in North America done service to the community by establishing the Infinity Foundation and helping with other Hindu causes. He is articulate, intelligent and well read. Economic motives, the acquistion of wealth, cannot be his agenda. Ofcourse, as with any author/writer he would like to maximize the sales of his books. In his case, there is also an almost messianic notion of wanting to reach out to Hindus to empower them. Some would simply call it an ego trip. There is also the fact that he is an autodidact and therefore his excursions into Judaeo Christian and Western thought are a novel exercise for him. In this exhilarating exercise (novel for him !) he lost sight of many things. 


Purva Paksha, the method he borrows from ancient Hindu intellectual/spiritual thought, and claims to use ,becomes simply an occasion for self advancement. Mr. Malhotra is no Shankara. Purva Paksha is not simply a ‘gaze’ at the adversary, but is accompanied by a rigorous unflinching critique of the enemy, as Adi Shankara did, and alas, Rajiv Malhotra is unable/unwilling to do ! Adi Shankara’s aim was to defeat, not to accommodate the enemy. As is well known, Shankara’s efforts led not only to the creation of Advaita Vedanta, but to the clearing of the decks for the ongoing continuation of Hinduism. In Mr.Malhotra’s hands it becomes a distortion both of the method and its aims. 

Malhotra wants to accommodate the enemy so to speak (although that is not his conscious agenda or so one hopes) and is therefore, a good candidate for Francis Xavier Clooney’s agenda. The ripple effect of these many discussions/debates on Hindu-Christian dialogue are Clooney’s great opportunity at further inculturation. 

And Rajiv Malhtora is entirely unprepared for this unequal balance of power, whatever his own subjective feelings about the importance of such events and the impact of his book. By putting forward his work as something different from what other Hindus are already doing and by a constant running down of Hindu gurus that they are not prepared to debate with the West, Malhotra is in effect trying to advance, at the expense of Hindus. This contradicts his own well meaning efforts at the empowerment of Hindus !

For Hindus, both in the diaspora and in the homeland, the lesson to be garnered from the Clooney-Malhotra discussions (euphemistically called Hindu-Christian dialogue) is that the tried and tested strength of Hinduism will endure. New fangled attempts are just that. They can be a fun read, but not to be taken seriously. The aam admi Hindu and the traditional acharyas, gurus, maths, etc. will continue their traditions. There are no signs that this will give way to what at present looks like the intellectual equivalent of Wallmart’s attempted entry into Indian retail. 

Has Mr. Malhotra set up only a straw man, the non existent uninformed Hindu of his imagination, in order to demolish this straw man , and thereby highlight his own albeit limited work ? And is Francis Clooney attempting the impossible, the destruction of Sanatana Dharma ?

(The writer is a Political Philosopher who taught at a Canadian university).

http://haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?PageID=15182

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[Sivakumar,Kollam]

Sadara panAmam,

Would you please give details about your article "Rise and Fall of Indology: From Max Muller to Witzel" on Google.

Namaste.

2011/12/21 navaratna rajaramnavaratna <rajaramn...@gmail.com>

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