I just signed the petition "Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy and Mr. Rohan Narayan Murty:
You can read more and sign the petition here:
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A simply message of support to three guys at Harvard University:Carry on with the good work, lads!This K. Ramasubramanian, should be ashamed of himself.
Vairāgya is very much absent in the utterences of these particular adhi-kāra's.As is saṃyama.
From where I stand, all I see is an ugly appeal to Nationalism in as a desperate last resort attempt to cling on to imagined prestige.
You don't have to be steeped in Grecian culture, to understand Plato.You don't have to be in Arabia to learn algebra (arabic al-jabr).
Cheers,Taff(The) Petitioning (of) Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy and Mr. Rohan Narayan Murty, Harvard University USA
Let humanity prevail.
A simply message of support to three guys at Harvard University:Carry on with the good work, lads!This K. Ramasubramanian, should be ashamed of himself.
1. Prof. Dominik Wujastyk :
I discovered yesterday that there exists a petitionlaunched by Prof. K. Ramasubramanian that asks for Prof. Sheldon Pollock tobe removed from his editorial leadership role with the Murty Library.The argument against Pollock is based on the idea that, "he has deepantipathy towards many of the ideals and values cherished and practiced inour civilization." The most prominent evidence given to support thisassertion is a quotation from a 2012 lecture that Prof. Pollock gave at theSouth Asia Institute in Heidelberg, titled, "What is South Asian KnowledgeGood For?" Prof. Ramasubramanian states that Prof. Pollock "echoes theviews of Macaulay and Max Weber that the shastras generated in India serveno contemporary purpose except for the study of how Indians expressthemselves." Unfortunately, Prof. Ramasubramanian has not correctlyunderstood these passages in Prof. Pollock's paper, nor the meaning of the2012 lecture as a whole.Prof. Pollock cites Macaulay and Weber as पूर्वपक्ष positions to his own,opposite view. Prof. Pollock presents Macaulay and Weber as examples ofthe worst kind of misunderstanding of Indian wisdom. He does this in orderto build his own argument that there is a deeper knowledge in India thanMacaualy or Weber realized, the knowledge that is the "South AsianKnowledge" of his title. This is the knowledge of the Indian शास्त्राणि,the Indian knowledge systems that Prof. Pollock is defending.Prof. Ramasubramanian then cites a passage in which Prof. Pollock says,Are there any decision makers, as they refer to themselves, at universitiesand foundations who would not agree that, in the cognitive sweepstakes ofhuman history, Western knowledge has won and South Asian knowledge haslost? ...That, accordingly, the South Asian knowledge South Asiansthemselves have produced can no longer be held to have any significantconsequences for the future of the human species?In this passage, Prof. Pollock is *criticising* the administrators ofwestern universities who do not give proper recognition and value to Indianknowledge systems, and only view India as a place to make money or to makepractical applications of knowledge systems of the West. Again, this isthe पूर्वपक्ष. Prof. Pollock's central argument is that the special,unique knowledge systems developed in India, mainly recorded in Sanskrit,are of great value, and that this fact is not recognized by "universitiesand foundations" who, like Macauley and Weber, think that Indian knowledgesystems have been superseded by Western ones. Prof. Pollock's point ofview is that the शास्त्राणि , representing South Asian Knowledge, areprecious, worth studying, and still have much to offer modern culturallife. On pages six and seven of his lecture, he gives the examples ofव्याकरण and the theory of रस as forms of knowledge that were developed to auniquely high degree in early India, and that still have the power toenrich thought today. On the subsequent pages, he begins to make the evenmore difficult argument for finding modern value in even moreinternally-oriented Indian sciences such as मीमांसा, अलङ्कार andनाट्यशास्त्र.The larger point of Prof. Pollock's article is that the institutions ofhigher education in America and elsewhere have found it difficult over thelast fifty years or more to develop institutional structures to support thestudy of *Indian* knowledge systems, and that the South Asia Institute inHeidelberg is a model of success in allowing those who develop knowledge *about*India to work in harmony alongside those who deepen their appreciation ofthe knowledge that was developed *by *India.It would be possible to make similar arguments for the other evidencereferred to by Prof. Ramasubramanian, e.g., Prof. Pollock's 1985 paper onthe character and importance of शास्त्राणि, of South Asian knowledgesystems. In that paper, Prof. Pollock says that, "Classical Indiancivilization, however, offers what may be the most exquisite expression ofthe centrality of rule-governance in human behavior" and that śāstra is "amonumental, in some cases unparalleled, intellectual accomplishment in itsown right." One could discuss this paper further. But to cite it as anexample of a criticism of India is the opposite of the truth.It is regrettable that Prof. Ramasubramanian has misunderstood Prof.Pollock's views by 180 degrees. Prof. Pollock is a champion for the samevalues of Indian culture as Prof. Ramasubramanian. That is why Prof.Pollock devised and brought into being the Murty Classical Library.Many people have signed Prof. Ramasubramanian's petition, presumablywithout having read Prof. Pollock's work for themselves, or having failedto undestand it. The damage done by this misunderstanding is likely tolast a long time, and hamper the efforts of Prof. Pollock and others whoseek to bring the glory and subtlety of ancient Indian knowledge to theattention of the modern world.
2. Sri Nityanandji:It is the season of petitions and statements! Adding some more details
before my comments:
1) While the petition of change.org has been started by Prof. K
Ramasubramanian, as many as 131 Indian intellectuals apart from Prof. K
Ramasubramanian signed the original plea to Mr. Narayana Murthy and Mr.
Rohan Murthy. I do not know if it was covered in a mainstream media source,
the much less-known newsgram.com carried it:
http://www.newsgram.com/132-indian-academicians-call-for-removal-of-sheldon-pollock-as-general-editor-of-murthy-classical-library/
I personally know and have met with many scholars on the list: and some of
them are very well respected in India, in addition to being well-known.
Prof. Ramasubramanian himself is a recipient of the Badarayan Vyas Samman.
2) Apart from the aspects highlighted in Dr. Wujastyk's email, two other
aspects which are very relevant to this petition: the letter by the
academicians mentions Mr. Rajiv Malhotra's *Battle of Sanskrit* as well as
Prof. Pollock's recent signing of the solidarity statement with the
“students, faculty, and staff of JNU”: the petition against Prof. Pollock
may well be a reaction to this. On the first aspect: Recently, Mr. Rajiv
Malhotra's book has been widely discussed in Indian universities of late.
Mr. Malhotra has been hosted by several Indian universities and institutes
(e.g. Karnataka Sanskrit University and TISS) for talks where he has
received both support and opposition, but more support than opposition as
far as I can say. On the second aspect, there was a discussion on the
*Bhāratīyavidvatpariṣat
*mailing list (Mr. Rajiv Malhotra recently joined this mailing list). The
thread was started by me, and I remarked in my short initial post “Before
the Indian courts decide, 455 academicians have already reached a
decision.” The discussion can be read here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bvparishat/cTgsJDKjA8I
My quick comments:
If it can be argued that the petition against Prof. Pollock is based on
‘misunderstanding’ or ‘wilful misconstrual’ (as members on this list have
described), then it can also be argued that the solidarity statement (to
which Prof. Pollock is a signatory) on the JNU issue is based on a ‘lack of
understanding’ of jurisprudence in India or ‘wilful misrepresentation’ of
facts. On jurisprudence: The Delhi Police has the documentary (video tapes)
and non-documentary (eye-witnesses) evidence, and the Indian courts will
examine the evidence and rule on the matter: then in what capacity does the
solidarity statement declare thrice that the police action on JNU was
‘illegal’. On misrepresentation, the solidarity statement misses that fact
that a large section of JNU students and teachers did support the police
action on JNU. This was also covered in the news:
http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/180-JNU-Teachers-Take-the-Sarkari-Side-Demand-Action-Against-Students/2016/02/16/article3280826.ece
As I see it, both petitions are rooted more in strong differences of
opinion/ideology than in misunderstanding or wilful
misconstrual/misrepresentation.
Thanks, Nityanand
In an earlier post of mine on Prof. Pollock's 2012 lecture, I said I wouldmake a separate post on deexoticization. Here it is:1. Dealing with the classics of a community which has living practitionersof various aspects of culture such as the religion contained in thoseclassics, is different from dealing with the classics of a community whichno longer has living practitioners of the religion and other such aspectsin those classics. Availability of these living practitioners is both aproblem and an opportunity. Problem because the practitioners react/respondto what has been said about what they live, in the study of the classicsthat contain the aspects that they put in practice; opportunity becausethe student of the classics can take the help of study of the practice inunderstanding the classics.2. What Prof. Ingalls did to Sanskrit studies, in the form of exposing,criticizing and countering the “monstrous” (-not my word-) Eurocentricstudy of Sanskrit material, was very much similar to what culturalrelativists did to the study of various world cultures. He madeSanskritists aware of the cultural sensitivity keeping in view thesensibilities of the culture insiders.Cultural relativists evaluate the validity of their study by taking backtheir study to the studied people and testing it for cultural sensitivity.3. Deromanticization, i.e., undoing of the romanticized presentation ofthe ‘positive’ of a culture studied need not necessarily be in the form ofthe other extreme, the romanticized presentation of the ‘negative’ of thestudied culture.When I go to fieldwork in Indian villages, the villagers keep asking me,“Are you going to present the same old feudal time picture of our villagesthat the movie guys present, a cruel landlord replacing the bullocks of acart with the agricultural laborers and whipping them to bleed and so on?”It is heartening to see that there are still a very big number of Sanskritscholars in US, who still live the sensitivity encouraged by likes ofProf. Ingalls. Though uneventful journeys do not get reported asnews, they are the ones passengers love!Thanks and regards,-N