Academe as Battleground â 3
Radha Rajan
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->- Harvard is not saying the Rg. Veda has several layers of meaning; <b>Harvard is saying it has an ancient meaning, a medieval meaning and contemporary meaning; </b>the meaning of the Rg. Veda for horse-riding Central Asian invaders/composers (because Rg. Veda is religious ritual in poetry format) is different from the meaning that our Bhashyakaras put on it and the meaning that modern western scholars like Max Mueller, Geldner and Witzel put on it.
........
â<i>At this juncture, <b>the whole planet is locked, figuratively, in a room with the socio-cultural (I would add western academic) equivalent of Hannibal Lecter. </b>An individual of consummate taste and refinement, imbued with indelible grace and charm, he distracts his victims with the brilliance of his intellect, even while honing his blade. He is thus able to dine alone upon their livers, his feast invariably candlelit, accompanied by lofty music and a fine wine. Over and over the ritual is repeated, always hidden, always denied in order that it may be continued. <b>So perfect is Lecterâs pathology that, from the depths of his scorn for the inferiors upon whom he feeds, he advances himself as their sage and therapist, he who is incomparably endowed with the ability to explain their innermost meanings, he professes to be their saviour. </b>His success depends upon being embraced and exalted by those upon whom he preys. Ultimately, so long as Lecter is able to retain<b> his mask of omnipotent gentility,</b> he can never be stopped. <b>The spirit of Hannibal Lecter is thus at the core of an expansionist European âcivilizationâ which has reached out to engulf the planet.</b></i>â (Ward Churchill, A Little Matter of Genocide, p 93)
The only way to halt the march of European Civilization is for the natives of every nation to start the process of re-claiming their nations from the Abrahamic religions. <b>In India, Hindus must begin to not only question motivated west-driven scholarship, but also expose the geo-politics behind such scholarship. </b>Iravatham Mahadevan, Pollachi Mahalingam, the University of Madras Departments of Sanskrit and Vaishnavism, Sri Vaishnava scholars, our epigraphists, historians, and linguists, and <b>the small idiots who think the likes of Witzel and Clooney, Doniger and Nussbaum must be defeated in polite academic exchange, must see themselves described by Ward Churchill.</b>
Churchill calls these <b>willing and unwitting allies and useful idiots, the âsympathetic biographerâ who attempts to explain Lecter in academic and sublime literary terms. â</b><i>The biographer thus reveals not only a willing complicity in the subjectâs crimes, but a virulent pathology of his or her own. Such is and has always been the relationship of âresponsible scholarshipâ to expansionist Europe and its derivative societies.</i>â (Ward Churchill)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Radha Rajan
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->- Harvard is not saying the Rg. Veda has several layers of meaning; <b>Harvard is saying it has an ancient meaning, a medieval meaning and contemporary meaning; </b>the meaning of the Rg. Veda for horse-riding Central Asian invaders/composers (because Rg. Veda is religious ritual in poetry format) is different from the meaning that our Bhashyakaras put on it and the meaning that modern western scholars like Max Mueller, Geldner and Witzel put on it.
........
â<i>At this juncture, <b>the whole planet is locked, figuratively, in a room with the socio-cultural (I would add western academic) equivalent of Hannibal Lecter. </b>An individual of consummate taste and refinement, imbued with indelible grace and charm, he distracts his victims with the brilliance of his intellect, even while honing his blade. He is thus able to dine alone upon their livers, his feast invariably candlelit, accompanied by lofty music and a fine wine. Over and over the ritual is repeated, always hidden, always denied in order that it may be continued. <b>So perfect is Lecterâs pathology that, from the depths of his scorn for the inferiors upon whom he feeds, he advances himself as their sage and therapist, he who is incomparably endowed with the ability to explain their innermost meanings, he professes to be their saviour. </b>His success depends upon being embraced and exalted by those upon whom he preys. Ultimately, so long as Lecter is able to retain<b> his mask of omnipotent gentility,</b> he can never be stopped. <b>The spirit of Hannibal Lecter is thus at the core of an expansionist European âcivilizationâ which has reached out to engulf the planet.</b></i>â (Ward Churchill, A Little Matter of Genocide, p 93)
The only way to halt the march of European Civilization is for the natives of every nation to start the process of re-claiming their nations from the Abrahamic religions. <b>In India, Hindus must begin to not only question motivated west-driven scholarship, but also expose the geo-politics behind such scholarship. </b>Iravatham Mahadevan, Pollachi Mahalingam, the University of Madras Departments of Sanskrit and Vaishnavism, Sri Vaishnava scholars, our epigraphists, historians, and linguists, and <b>the small idiots who think the likes of Witzel and Clooney, Doniger and Nussbaum must be defeated in polite academic exchange, must see themselves described by Ward Churchill.</b>
Churchill calls these <b>willing and unwitting allies and useful idiots, the âsympathetic biographerâ who attempts to explain Lecter in academic and sublime literary terms. â</b><i>The biographer thus reveals not only a willing complicity in the subjectâs crimes, but a virulent pathology of his or her own. Such is and has always been the relationship of âresponsible scholarshipâ to expansionist Europe and its derivative societies.</i>â (Ward Churchill)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->