03-11-2006, 07:38 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Academic researchers versus Hindu civilisation
http://www.sulekha.com/blogs/blogdisplay.aspx?cid=3606
<i>"The Bhagavad Gita is not as nice a book as some Americans think. Throughout the Mahabharata ... Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of murderous and self-destructive behaviours such as war.... The Gita is a dishonest book; it justifies war. ..I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in 'good' wars." </i>
(Wendy Doniger, Indologist and Professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago: Philadelphia Inquirer of 19 November. 2000.)
<b>Introduction</b>
This discussion seeks to understand why Indian studies in the West (especially the US and the UK) are overwhelmingly hostile to their object of scrutiny. In the first place, ethnocentric and parochial perceptions will usually dominate when one culture critically evaluates another. And once the resulting interpretative canon becomes firmly established through common consent, prolonged practice and appropriate imprimaturs, it becomes painfully difficult to dislodge, even if it is motivated by an intellectually disingenuous political rationale. In the case of the contemporary Western critique of India, and increasingly Hinduism, its rationale and sheer perversity can be attributed to mundane political reasons and international power politics. In order to understand the dynamics of this phenomenon vis-Ã -vis India and Hinduism one first needs to explain the role of the academic and researcher, the intellectual entrepreneurs of society, and their function as agents of the political objectives of society. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.sulekha.com/blogs/blogdisplay.aspx?cid=3606
<i>"The Bhagavad Gita is not as nice a book as some Americans think. Throughout the Mahabharata ... Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of murderous and self-destructive behaviours such as war.... The Gita is a dishonest book; it justifies war. ..I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in 'good' wars." </i>
(Wendy Doniger, Indologist and Professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago: Philadelphia Inquirer of 19 November. 2000.)
<b>Introduction</b>
This discussion seeks to understand why Indian studies in the West (especially the US and the UK) are overwhelmingly hostile to their object of scrutiny. In the first place, ethnocentric and parochial perceptions will usually dominate when one culture critically evaluates another. And once the resulting interpretative canon becomes firmly established through common consent, prolonged practice and appropriate imprimaturs, it becomes painfully difficult to dislodge, even if it is motivated by an intellectually disingenuous political rationale. In the case of the contemporary Western critique of India, and increasingly Hinduism, its rationale and sheer perversity can be attributed to mundane political reasons and international power politics. In order to understand the dynamics of this phenomenon vis-Ã -vis India and Hinduism one first needs to explain the role of the academic and researcher, the intellectual entrepreneurs of society, and their function as agents of the political objectives of society. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->