08-07-2009, 12:45 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-Viren+Jul 27 2009, 10:31 AM-->QUOTE(Viren @ Jul 27 2009, 10:31 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->HARVARD PROFESSOR WITZEL'S FOLLIES
by Dr. Seshachalam Dutta
[right][snapback]99989[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
HERE IS MY LETTER TO kAPILA JI WRITTERN ON jULY 8 PRIOR TOTHE icici MTG
Dear Dr. Vatsyayan, I was shocked to hear that you are chairing the session with Prof Michael Witzel as speaker , on July 10 at the IIC. This is the man who mocked Indian parents in America who encouraged their daughters to learn Indian dance, with offensive remarks on their status as temple dancers in ancient India. But that is the least of the negative things that can be said about him. I have never heard him say a good word about Hinduism or any Hindu for that matter.
Why on earth would you want to honor this man by your presence .
Please reconsider your decision as i am convinced this would be a major blunder on your part. I am attaching a dossier on Witzel that has been compiled by the indian american community.
Let me assure you that this has nothing to do with being a Hindutva. This individual is not only ignorant about our traditions , but is imbued with a high degree of contempt for all Hindus. Pl. do not do this i implore you,
With regards
Kosla Vepa
wwELL THE NET RESULT OF ALL OF THIS, IS THAt Kapila ji , while not acceding to my request was sufficienty harsh on him to make the debate a meaningful one despite Herr Witzel's faux pas . The net of all of this is to create an atmosphere that is he will . am enclosing the letter i wrote about his shenanigans.
Dossier on Witzel
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It is an annoying habit of Prof Witzel of dismissing any inconvenient statement with a wave of his hand, that makes his participation in discussion devoid of any redeeming value
For instance I am aghast that a putative scholar would make the broad stereotyping inherent in a statement of the type
"there are many canards and there is much misinformation on this list. Not to speak of absolute fantasy with regard to dates that are in fact interconnecting worldwide (Near East/Greece, China), but that are artificially made older by nationalists here."
His use of the word canard implies malice , but where does malice come in when we are talking about our own history. His standard riposte is that these statements are made by nationalists. I ask this for the umpteenth time what is wrong with being a nationalist. Winston Churchill was a staunch British nationalist throughout his long career and certainly would not have objected to such an appellation when he wrote the history of the English speaking peoples , but few would ignore what he says because he is a nationalist. The same remarks can be made with respect to Charles de Gaulle or Bismarck or Matternich or Talleyrond . So the real crime here is not that the people making these statements are nationalists, but the real crime according to Herr Prof Witzel is that they are Hindu nationalists, which he often subsumes under the term Hindutva. A few years ago I daresay he would not have known the difference between a Hottentot and a Hindutva even if his life depended on it. But he has latched on to the domestic discourse on this topic and that a section of the Indian public considers the use of the word Hindutva as pejorative and has used the word in a very derisive comment on the conference that i organized in Delhi during January 2009 , and in many other instances. He doesn't seem to understand that this an issue of domestic politics and that it really does not concern him , in his role as a a putative scholar, and that this broad stereotyping of people into narrow political boxes is an insult to a Hindu who values his individuality . A human being is a multifaceted entity and any attempt to reduce the dimensionality of a human being can truly be termed as a highly bigoted and racist endeavor , that usually results in categorizing humanity into simplistic, reductionist but erroneous categories, as a prelude to demonizing them. So I request Prof Witzel to refrain from ad hominem remarks and restrict himself to what is wrong with the arguments. If he does not have the time to do that , he seems to be implying that such arguments are complex and cannot be dismissed in a jiffy with a wave of oneâs hand. The issue is not one of being a Hindutva but whether one is competent in the field of endeavor. Prof Witzel rarely make the attempt to establish the lack of competency of those who challenge him, while his own competency to make such statements remain severely under duress.
I am posting this response in my blog, sinc the moderators of the Indo Euerasian yahoo group will not afford me the right of rebuttal at their site. What are they afraid of ?
It is interesting that the notion that 6 people with a science background should turn their attention to history in a land of 1 billion , should be a cause for such derisiveness and scorn on the part of the Professor of Sanskrit from Harvard
Apparently it is not permitted for even 6 people out of a billion , over a sixty year period to claim some degree of scholarship in the field after spending their lifetime studying it. So much so that, even when such a low number as 6*10**-9 is involved, ( a number that will not register as a statistically significant quantity and is below the 6 Sigma number used by engineers to define a process with an incidence of errors that is for all practical purposes, is equal to 0), Prof Witzel feels compelled to remark that it is just a hop step and a jump away from saying anybody can become a historian. He also ignores the fact that each of the six brings impressive credentials to the task, and that if anything such a small number in fact indicates how hard it is to be taken seriously as a Historian of India, especially if one is not an Occidental
The more important point to make is that if we use Prof Witzelâs criterion almost every occidental historian (and philologist of India in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century) should have disqualified himself, from writing or commenting on India. Almost all the original sanskritists were self taught, with very little independent verification of their credentials. That includes Franz Bopp and Bernouff. Max Mueller never got his PhD degree( it is in fact doubtful whether he completed the course requirements for a Masters) and his ability to converse or understand a single sentence of spoken Sanskrit was abysmal. One suspects he never went to India, and subject himself to a debate with a Sanskrit pundit because he knew that the resulting ignominy would expose him for what he truly was , a charlatan claiming expertise in a language, in which his mastery was sophomoric at best. In fact it was Schopenauer who had the perspicacity to say that the much vaunted sanskrit knowledge of these so called Sanskritists was worse than the knowledge of a high school graduate in Latin.
It is the civilizational historians like Arnold Toynbee and Will Durant that have taken the contrarian viewpoint. The rest have been content to make the assumption that The European is naturally superior and therefore everything he says should be accepted without questioning. The entire dialog between India and the occident has been one long circular argument, where Michael Witzel of Harvard maintains that i do not have the right to be taken seriously because I am a Hindutva. There are several assumptions that are implicit in such a stereotyping
1. I am a member of an unspeakably evil or senseless group of people called Hindutva, every member of which is beyond the pale of human civilization, simply because he is a Hindutva
2. That therefore. I forfeit the right to have an informed opinion.
3. That No Indian has the right to become a historian unless he is anointed as such by an occidental and that conversely every Occidental has the right to call himself a historian of India , simply because he spends a couple of years in the subcontinent. Most British Historians of India have had no formal training in History much less Indian History. No occidental has challenged the credentials of the host of British and occidental writers from Sir James Mills to Sir William Jones ,Vincent Smith,Sir Penderel Moon or Frank Pargiter, none of whom were Professional historians but the very same Occidental has the absolute hubris to judge whether I possess the credential to write about my own civilization
Alas, I am challenged more frequently by Indians than I am by Occidentals , who (the Indics) are horrifed that i dare to question the conventional wisdom as propounded by a member of the conquering race .
--- In Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com, Michael Witzel wrote:
>
> For your weekend amusement, though the repeated insistence on
> "rewriting" of Indian history is really ... boring:
>
> See:
> "US-based engineer turned historian, Dr Vepa" says it all...
>
> Like our long time friends mathematician Rajaram, bank employees Dr.
> K. and Talageri, electric engineering Prof. S. Kak, medical
> technician V. Agarwal (M.Sc.), astrologers like David Fawley
> ("Vamedeva") etc. etc. Likewise, K. Vepa: he has a PhD of the
> University of Waterloo in Engineering Sciences & applied mechanics,
> studied there 1968 � 1972.
>
> *Anybody* in the Indian orbit can turn historian overnight, at the
> drop of a hat.
> Preferably, after retirement...
>
> Yesterday a conference on this topic has begun in Delhi:
> 39258>
>
> tiny URL:
>
> Interestingly, even IER/Westerner-baiter Sandhya Jain (rabid
> columnist in the chauvinistic paper, the Organizer), had to comment:
> "NONE of the persons mentioned is a historian!"
>
> Sure, it is a *political* event that she should actually welcome :^)
>
> ----------
> Quote :
>
>
> International meet on Indian history
>
by Dr. Seshachalam Dutta
[right][snapback]99989[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
HERE IS MY LETTER TO kAPILA JI WRITTERN ON jULY 8 PRIOR TOTHE icici MTG
Dear Dr. Vatsyayan, I was shocked to hear that you are chairing the session with Prof Michael Witzel as speaker , on July 10 at the IIC. This is the man who mocked Indian parents in America who encouraged their daughters to learn Indian dance, with offensive remarks on their status as temple dancers in ancient India. But that is the least of the negative things that can be said about him. I have never heard him say a good word about Hinduism or any Hindu for that matter.
Why on earth would you want to honor this man by your presence .
Please reconsider your decision as i am convinced this would be a major blunder on your part. I am attaching a dossier on Witzel that has been compiled by the indian american community.
Let me assure you that this has nothing to do with being a Hindutva. This individual is not only ignorant about our traditions , but is imbued with a high degree of contempt for all Hindus. Pl. do not do this i implore you,
With regards
Kosla Vepa
wwELL THE NET RESULT OF ALL OF THIS, IS THAt Kapila ji , while not acceding to my request was sufficienty harsh on him to make the debate a meaningful one despite Herr Witzel's faux pas . The net of all of this is to create an atmosphere that is he will . am enclosing the letter i wrote about his shenanigans.
Dossier on Witzel
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KoslaVepa
by KoslaVepa
21 Followers
Down_arrowMore from this Publisher
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51 views
* Dossier on Witzel
284 views
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480 views
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17028 views
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500 views
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547 views
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577 views
* The interconnectioon b etweeen Mudras , He...
468 views
* Proposed skeleton of Chronology of the In...
338 views
* The Historicity of Vikramaditya and Saliva...
445 views
* B.B. Lal Distortions in Indian history
368 views
* Tilting at Windmills
159 views
* Chairman's Address at ICIH2009 by Prof Sh...
221 views
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114 views
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187 views
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* Stats
* Views
Value This
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Average
Pages: 27 43
Words: 15240 13640
Characters: 99452 81678
Lines: 332 623
Letters per word: 6.53 5.99
Words per line: 45.9 21.89
Words per page: 564.44 317.21
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It is an annoying habit of Prof Witzel of dismissing any inconvenient statement with a wave of his hand, that makes his participation in discussion devoid of any redeeming value
For instance I am aghast that a putative scholar would make the broad stereotyping inherent in a statement of the type
"there are many canards and there is much misinformation on this list. Not to speak of absolute fantasy with regard to dates that are in fact interconnecting worldwide (Near East/Greece, China), but that are artificially made older by nationalists here."
His use of the word canard implies malice , but where does malice come in when we are talking about our own history. His standard riposte is that these statements are made by nationalists. I ask this for the umpteenth time what is wrong with being a nationalist. Winston Churchill was a staunch British nationalist throughout his long career and certainly would not have objected to such an appellation when he wrote the history of the English speaking peoples , but few would ignore what he says because he is a nationalist. The same remarks can be made with respect to Charles de Gaulle or Bismarck or Matternich or Talleyrond . So the real crime here is not that the people making these statements are nationalists, but the real crime according to Herr Prof Witzel is that they are Hindu nationalists, which he often subsumes under the term Hindutva. A few years ago I daresay he would not have known the difference between a Hottentot and a Hindutva even if his life depended on it. But he has latched on to the domestic discourse on this topic and that a section of the Indian public considers the use of the word Hindutva as pejorative and has used the word in a very derisive comment on the conference that i organized in Delhi during January 2009 , and in many other instances. He doesn't seem to understand that this an issue of domestic politics and that it really does not concern him , in his role as a a putative scholar, and that this broad stereotyping of people into narrow political boxes is an insult to a Hindu who values his individuality . A human being is a multifaceted entity and any attempt to reduce the dimensionality of a human being can truly be termed as a highly bigoted and racist endeavor , that usually results in categorizing humanity into simplistic, reductionist but erroneous categories, as a prelude to demonizing them. So I request Prof Witzel to refrain from ad hominem remarks and restrict himself to what is wrong with the arguments. If he does not have the time to do that , he seems to be implying that such arguments are complex and cannot be dismissed in a jiffy with a wave of oneâs hand. The issue is not one of being a Hindutva but whether one is competent in the field of endeavor. Prof Witzel rarely make the attempt to establish the lack of competency of those who challenge him, while his own competency to make such statements remain severely under duress.
I am posting this response in my blog, sinc the moderators of the Indo Euerasian yahoo group will not afford me the right of rebuttal at their site. What are they afraid of ?
It is interesting that the notion that 6 people with a science background should turn their attention to history in a land of 1 billion , should be a cause for such derisiveness and scorn on the part of the Professor of Sanskrit from Harvard
Apparently it is not permitted for even 6 people out of a billion , over a sixty year period to claim some degree of scholarship in the field after spending their lifetime studying it. So much so that, even when such a low number as 6*10**-9 is involved, ( a number that will not register as a statistically significant quantity and is below the 6 Sigma number used by engineers to define a process with an incidence of errors that is for all practical purposes, is equal to 0), Prof Witzel feels compelled to remark that it is just a hop step and a jump away from saying anybody can become a historian. He also ignores the fact that each of the six brings impressive credentials to the task, and that if anything such a small number in fact indicates how hard it is to be taken seriously as a Historian of India, especially if one is not an Occidental
The more important point to make is that if we use Prof Witzelâs criterion almost every occidental historian (and philologist of India in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century) should have disqualified himself, from writing or commenting on India. Almost all the original sanskritists were self taught, with very little independent verification of their credentials. That includes Franz Bopp and Bernouff. Max Mueller never got his PhD degree( it is in fact doubtful whether he completed the course requirements for a Masters) and his ability to converse or understand a single sentence of spoken Sanskrit was abysmal. One suspects he never went to India, and subject himself to a debate with a Sanskrit pundit because he knew that the resulting ignominy would expose him for what he truly was , a charlatan claiming expertise in a language, in which his mastery was sophomoric at best. In fact it was Schopenauer who had the perspicacity to say that the much vaunted sanskrit knowledge of these so called Sanskritists was worse than the knowledge of a high school graduate in Latin.
It is the civilizational historians like Arnold Toynbee and Will Durant that have taken the contrarian viewpoint. The rest have been content to make the assumption that The European is naturally superior and therefore everything he says should be accepted without questioning. The entire dialog between India and the occident has been one long circular argument, where Michael Witzel of Harvard maintains that i do not have the right to be taken seriously because I am a Hindutva. There are several assumptions that are implicit in such a stereotyping
1. I am a member of an unspeakably evil or senseless group of people called Hindutva, every member of which is beyond the pale of human civilization, simply because he is a Hindutva
2. That therefore. I forfeit the right to have an informed opinion.
3. That No Indian has the right to become a historian unless he is anointed as such by an occidental and that conversely every Occidental has the right to call himself a historian of India , simply because he spends a couple of years in the subcontinent. Most British Historians of India have had no formal training in History much less Indian History. No occidental has challenged the credentials of the host of British and occidental writers from Sir James Mills to Sir William Jones ,Vincent Smith,Sir Penderel Moon or Frank Pargiter, none of whom were Professional historians but the very same Occidental has the absolute hubris to judge whether I possess the credential to write about my own civilization
Alas, I am challenged more frequently by Indians than I am by Occidentals , who (the Indics) are horrifed that i dare to question the conventional wisdom as propounded by a member of the conquering race .
--- In Indo-Eurasian_research@yahoogroups.com, Michael Witzel wrote:
>
> For your weekend amusement, though the repeated insistence on
> "rewriting" of Indian history is really ... boring:
>
> See:
> "US-based engineer turned historian, Dr Vepa" says it all...
>
> Like our long time friends mathematician Rajaram, bank employees Dr.
> K. and Talageri, electric engineering Prof. S. Kak, medical
> technician V. Agarwal (M.Sc.), astrologers like David Fawley
> ("Vamedeva") etc. etc. Likewise, K. Vepa: he has a PhD of the
> University of Waterloo in Engineering Sciences & applied mechanics,
> studied there 1968 � 1972.
>
> *Anybody* in the Indian orbit can turn historian overnight, at the
> drop of a hat.
> Preferably, after retirement...
>
> Yesterday a conference on this topic has begun in Delhi:
> 39258>
>
> tiny URL:
>
> Interestingly, even IER/Westerner-baiter Sandhya Jain (rabid
> columnist in the chauvinistic paper, the Organizer), had to comment:
> "NONE of the persons mentioned is a historian!"
>
> Sure, it is a *political* event that she should actually welcome :^)
>
> ----------
> Quote :
>
>
> International meet on Indian history
>