Actualización de la peticiónRemoval of Sheldon Pollock as mentor and Chief Editor of Murty Classical LibraryLet us Stop Funding our enemies - Aditi Banerjee
Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay
10 mar 2016 — http://swarajyamag.com/culture/lets-stop-funding-our-enemies There is a traditional parable about a pious person who wanted to go to the local tavern in order to rescue and reform the drinkers and to bring them to the temple instead. A wise man cautioned him to think twice before entering the tavern, because while he may enter with good intentions, thinking that he will bring others to the temple, he may instead himself get stuck in the tavern. And then not only would he have failed to rescue the others, but he himself would be lost, too. Some well-intentioned, well-heeled Indian groups and businessmen are now engaged in foolhardy attempts to go into the metaphorical tavern—in this case, the Western academy. It is well-known that the academy—the system of universities and scholarship prevalent in the West and in India today—is virulently anti-Hindu and anti-India. It is dominated by leftist discourse that hates traditional societies and religion and that finds tempting and soft targets in Hinduism. As Indians in India and the diaspora accumulate even greater hordes of wealth, they are plum targets for fundraising and bankrolling various projects of different kinds. Combined with the sincere but misguided intention of some well-meaning Indian individuals and groups, it has led to a dangerous trend of Indians and Hindus bankrolling projects in the academy that threaten to harm the interests of India and Hinduism. Rather than taking over enemy territory, we are actually now bankrolling the enemy. Three examples of this phenomenon have been in the news recently. One is the controversy over the Murty Classical Library of India. N.R. Narayanana Murthy, co-founder of Infosys, and his family bestowed a $5.2M grant to Harvard University for the establishment of the Murty Classical Library of India under the general editorship of Sheldon Pollock, the Arvind Raghunathan Professor of Sanskrit and South Asian Studies at Columbia University. The library is intended to translate into English 500 classics of Indian literature in various languages from the past two millennia. Pollock has a history of anti-Hindu scholarship spanning decades. In addition to Pollock, the editorial board for the library consists of Monika Horstmann, Professor Emerita of Modern Indian Studies, Heidelberg University; Sunil Sharma, Associate Professor of Persianate and Comparative Literature, Boston University; and David Shulman, Renee Lang Professor of Humanistic Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The first volume of the series was Sufi Lyrics, and other titles include The History of Akbar (presented in two volumes), two volumes on Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, and Therigatha: Poems of the First Buddhist Women. A petition was launched by several renowned Sanskrit scholars in India, garnering over 15,000 signatures, asking the Murtys to reconstitute the editorial group of the library with a fair representation of the lineages and traditional groups that teach and follow the traditions of the texts being translated. They also are requesting a written set of standards and policies for consistency throughout the project, including principles like rejection of the discredited Aryan Invasion theory, etc. Now, predictably, the academy is lashing out, with a massive PR campaign to discredit the petition in order to ensure Pollock’s continued stewardship of the project. This news comes on the heels of the University of California, Irvine rejecting a $3M donation to establish chairs in Hindu and India studies by the Dharma Civilization Foundation (DCF), an organization seeking to counter anti-Hindu bias in the academy. The rejection was based on concerns about the ‘ideology’ of the donors and the organization. There have also been efforts afoot to establish an Adi Shankara chaired professorship at Columbia University on behalf of the Sringeri peetham (one of the most hallowed and prestigious Hindu institutions in the world and the first mathato be established by Adi Shankaracharya), again under the oversight and guidance of Sheldon Pollock. The determination as to who would occupy the chair, what studies would be pursued under the chair, etc., would all remain with the university administration and their appointed committee, not Sringeri peetham or the donors. While the motives behind each of these initiatives may be laudable, they are fundamentally ill-conceived and dangerous. None of these initiatives provide sufficient controls to ensure that our interests are unharmed. They are tantamount to handing over a blind check to the academy, which has a long and checkered history of anti-India and anti-Hindu bias. When we as individuals in the US, for example, donate money to qualified tax-exempt charities, there are controls in place to ensure that the funds can only be utilized for certain purposes and in certain ways under tax laws. These controls ensure that we are not defrauded and that our hard-earned money is not squandered by the recipient. These initiatives totally lack such controls. To think that a few million dollars here and there will be enough to cause a meaningful change in the academy is foolish and incredibly naïve. Entering traditionally hostile territory requires sufficient armor and a waterproof battle plan and strategy in order to ensure that you do not simply end up as a pawn for the other side. Even having one of our own appointed as a professor is not sufficient if the ultimate control and authority over that professorship is wielded by a coterie of scholars who are opposed to our traditions as we interpret them, in the absence of sufficient controls to ensure autonomy for the chair.
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