12-12-2006, 06:52 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->December 12, 2006
<b>The Berlin Institute of Indology
Subject: Closing down the Berlin Institute of Indology
</b>
Ladies and Gentlemen:
  In closing down the Berlin Institute of Indology, I feel that the authorities have shown sound judgment and awareness of emerging developments in the world of scholarship and enlightened attitudes in the post-colonial world. Indology is a tainted discipline with a painful legacy of racism, shoddy scholarship and politics. It has an indefensible record of ideological abuse. This ideological abuse saw its culmination in the Nazi atrocities and keeps raising its head at every opportunity, even six decades after the end of Nazi rule.
  The fall of the Third Reich did not end the mindset that gave rise to these abuses. Only anti-Hinduism replaced anti-Semitism as the outlet for its hate mongering. This came to the fore during the vicious anti-Hindu campaign waged by the German-born Harvard Indologist Michael Witzel, almost the last holdout for Aryan theories, against enlightened changes in California school curriculum. He and like minded 'scholars' are now running a hate group calling itself Indo-Eurasian Research (IER).
  Through historical circumstances, 'scholars' like Michael Witzel and Indology in general remain a blot on German history. It should have ended with the Third Reich, but academic self-interest kept this intellectual pathology alive.
  Indians have no use for Indology, which they see with some justice as a colonial artificact which besmirches the name of India in propagating values and abuses that have nothing to do with India. I see the closure of the Berlin Institute of Indology, along with its counterpart in Cambridge University, as a first step towards correcting this historical wrong. My compliments to you on your timely decision.
..
Sincerely,
xxxx
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<b>The Berlin Institute of Indology
Subject: Closing down the Berlin Institute of Indology
</b>
Ladies and Gentlemen:
  In closing down the Berlin Institute of Indology, I feel that the authorities have shown sound judgment and awareness of emerging developments in the world of scholarship and enlightened attitudes in the post-colonial world. Indology is a tainted discipline with a painful legacy of racism, shoddy scholarship and politics. It has an indefensible record of ideological abuse. This ideological abuse saw its culmination in the Nazi atrocities and keeps raising its head at every opportunity, even six decades after the end of Nazi rule.
  The fall of the Third Reich did not end the mindset that gave rise to these abuses. Only anti-Hinduism replaced anti-Semitism as the outlet for its hate mongering. This came to the fore during the vicious anti-Hindu campaign waged by the German-born Harvard Indologist Michael Witzel, almost the last holdout for Aryan theories, against enlightened changes in California school curriculum. He and like minded 'scholars' are now running a hate group calling itself Indo-Eurasian Research (IER).
  Through historical circumstances, 'scholars' like Michael Witzel and Indology in general remain a blot on German history. It should have ended with the Third Reich, but academic self-interest kept this intellectual pathology alive.
  Indians have no use for Indology, which they see with some justice as a colonial artificact which besmirches the name of India in propagating values and abuses that have nothing to do with India. I see the closure of the Berlin Institute of Indology, along with its counterpart in Cambridge University, as a first step towards correcting this historical wrong. My compliments to you on your timely decision.
..
Sincerely,
xxxx
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