{"id":37079,"date":"2017-02-15T17:20:17","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T11:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org\/?p=37079"},"modified":"2017-02-15T17:20:17","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T11:50:17","slug":"the-asymmetric-dialog-of-civilizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=37079","title":{"rendered":"The Asymmetric Dialog Of Civilizations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The History<\/b>
\nIn contrast with the\u00a0clash<\/i>\u00a0of civilizations now being popularized, I would much rather propose a\u00a0dialog<\/i>among them. But what are the historical reasons for lack of this dialog, and what prevents this from becoming the\u00a0top<\/i>\u00a0priority for humanity today? I researched the writings of eminent scholars in a variety of specialties, such as history, multiculturalism, colonialism, Eurocentrism, to name a few. Serious work by many mainstream scholars abundantly establishes the mutual dependency between the asymmetry of power and institutionalized prejudices in research and education. These asymmetries of power and intellectual representation prevent genuine dialog among the peoples of the world.
\nConsider the following quotes from prominent scholars of inter-civilization studies:
\nEurocentrism is the colonizer\u2019s model of the world in a very literal sense: it is not merely a set of beliefs, a bundle of beliefs. It has evolved, through time, into a very finely sculpted model, a structured whole; in fact a single theory; in fact a super theory, a general framework for many smaller theories, historical, geographical, psychological, sociological, and philosophical. \u2014\u00a0J.M. Blaut<\/i>\u00a0[1]
\nThe conquistador exerted his power by denying the Other his dignity, by reducing the Indian to the Same, and by compelling the Indian to become his docile, oppressed instrument. The conquest practically affirms the conquering ego and negates the Other as Other\u2026 [A]fter the innocent Other\u2019s victimization, the myth of modernity declares the Other the culpable cause of that victimization and absolves the modern subject of any guilt for the victimizing act\u2026 Finally, the suffering of the conquered and colonized people appears as a necessary sacrifice and the inevitable price of modernization\u2026 Modernity justifies the Other\u2019s suffering because it [allegedly] saves many innocent victims from the barbarity of these cultures\u2026 The myth of modernity perpetrates a gigantic\u00a0inversion<\/i>: the innocent victim becomes culpable and the culpable victimizer becomes innocent. \u2014\u00a0Enrique Dussel\u00a0<\/i>[2]
\nNotice, in particular, how academic scholarship in the humanities, far from being considered\u00a0objective<\/i>, is viewed as a central culprit, even today:
\n[T]he history which [the colonial scholar] writes is not the history of the country which he plunders but the history of his own nation in regard to all that she skims off, all that she violates and starves. \u2014Frantz Fanon<\/i>\u00a0[3]
\n\u2026[T]he game is still going on, when \u2018otherness\u2019 of the other is used to legitimize the oppression and subjugation\u2026 The tensions and anxieties that we bear as members of distinct groups are now to be seen in their interconnectedness\u2026 It is indeed difficult to fight a battle whose goal is not to defeat anyone but rather that nobody is defeated. The battle is to be waged against a system that produces the oppressors and the oppressed, the exploiters and the exploited, the winners and the losers, cutting across race, gender, nationality or any other form of collectivity\u2026 The \u201cinstitutionalization of universities into departmental structures\u201d plays an important role in the cultural life of the West. This is precisely why when these departments do not represent the intellectual traditions of the East, they are not simply silent but they are helping to perpetuate the image of a mythical, mysterious, non-rational East. \u2014\u00a0Anindita Niyogi Balslev<\/i>\u00a0[4]
\nFocusing specifically on the misrepresentation of India, I found a wealth of research material. For instance, Wilhelm Halbfass, the Indologist at U-Penn (who unfortunately passed away a year ago) wrote:
\n\u201cIn the modern planetary situation Eastern and Western \u2018cultures\u2019 can no longer meet one another as equal partners. They meet in a westernized world, under conditions shaped by western ways of thinking.\u201d [5]
\nColonizers heavily sponsored scholars to research and represent their colonized subjects. For instance, the British Census of India was one such process to represent India in British categories, while superficially pretending to use Indian categories. This became the basis for re-engineering India\u2019s society to fit into rigid \u2018castes\u2019, a representation that has continued after independence and has become the center of India\u2019s politics today. The \u2018essentializing\u2019 of caste in the representation means that it is deemed an inherent and unchangeable quality that Hindus are frozen into forever. (Traditionally,\u00a0jatis<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0varnas<\/i>\u00a0were independent of one another, and had mobility.) The more flexible language of describing certain communities as socially underprivileged, and implementing affirmative action programs strictly based on economic means, would have de-essentialized the\u00a0jati<\/i>, and over a period of time reduced its significance.\u00a0\u2018Dalit\u2019<\/i>\u00a0as a category by birth is self-perpetuating, unproductive and divisive, and the consequence of adopting a colonial representation system.
\nA representation system is a meta-ideology, providing the implicit frame of reference of the discourse, and acts as the subliminal playing field on which specific scholarship unfolds. The power of representation was explained very emphatically by Friedreich Nietzsche:
\n\u201cThe reputation, name, and appearance, the usual measure and weight of a thing, what it counts for \u2014 originally almost always wrong and arbitrary \u2014 grows from generation unto generation, merely because people believe in it, until it gradually grows to be a part of the thing and turns into its very body. What at first was appearance becomes in the end, almost invariably, the essence and is effective as such.\u201d
\nHuston Smith, one of the leaders of the western academy for religious studies, recently described Freudian psychoanalysis of Hindu saints, now a popular academic movement, as \u201ccolonialism updated.\u201d [6]
\nThe Challenge of Dialog<\/b>
\nTo have a genuine dialog of civilizations, the \u2018other\u2019 side must be present as itself and not via proxy, must be able to use its own framework to represent itself, and must be free to anthropologize and criticize the dominant culture without fear of undue censorship or academic reprisal. Balslev explains the importance of the process:
\n\u201c\u2026The challenge before us is not to validate a heritage or a culture at the cost of another but to perceive cross-cultural conversation as a mutually empowering dialogue that raises the consciousness of all the participants involved\u2026 [I]n a genuine dialogue, the dialogical partners are not merely \u201csubjects\u201d speaking to each other, but\u00a0participants<\/i>\u00a0in the dialogue. The practice of dialogue is an art that must be cultivated\u2026 We must revise our prejudgments, modify our hypotheses, and then listen again. In this to-and-fro movement in which we (mutually) seek to understand each other, the dialogic partners cultivate the\u00a0art<\/i>\u00a0of the hermeneutical circle.\u201d [7]
\nBefore proceeding to describe the asymmetries that prevent genuine dialog specifically between Indic traditions and the scholars, I wish to clarify at the outset that I represent neither pole of what has become a bipolar\u00a0fight<\/i>\u00a0for the representation of Indian culture: I am\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0representing the Hindutva view, as Hindutva should not be conflated with Hinduism, because: (i) Hindutva is a political mobilization, (ii) it is a recent 20th century construct in response to contemporary situations, and (iii) it assumes a specific (reductionist) package of stances, whereas most Hindus pick and choose positions from an\u00a0a la carte<\/i>\u00a0menu of choices [8]. At the same time, I do not deny the Hindutva their right to a position within the vast spectrum of Hinduism, as one of many ways to be a Hindu. At the other pole, is the theory of Hinduism defined as\u00a0The Evil Brahmin Conspiracy<\/i>. Most Hindus I know belong to neither extreme, although there has been a tendency for one pole to insist, \u2018if you are not pink, you must be saffron\u2019, and vice versa. The vast middle is un-essentialized, where creative dialog can take place, and it is in this middle space that I position myself and the observations below.
\nThe five asymmetries, of which the first three concern academic translations of Indic culture, are:
\nAsymmetry I: Anthropologist Dominating the Native Informant<\/b>
\nKaren Brown, the anthropologist of religion, recently proposed the following as the credo for western anthropologists: \u201cThe people and cultures that we Westerners study deserve our respect, reciprocity, and responsibility.\u201d [9] However, scholars often unintentionally assume that distance (intellectual, cultural, geographic) produces objectivity, whereas reciprocity and not distance is the key to dialog. The dark side of contemporary anthropology is exposed bluntly by Edward Said:
\n\u201c\u2026[Western scholarship]\u2026 carries within it as a major constitutive element, the unequal relationship of force between, the outside Western ethnographer-observer and a primitive, or at least different but certainly weaker and less developed, non-Western society. \u2026The real problem remains to haunt us: the relationship between anthropology as an ongoing enterprise and on the other hand, empire as an ongoing concern\u2026. [A]nthropology is being seen as part of a larger, more complex historical whole, much more closely aligned with the consolidation of Western power than had previously been admitted. \u2026 Thus: think the narratives through together within the context provided by the history of imperialism\u2026.\u201d [10]
\n\u201cThe fetishization and relentless celebration or \u201cdifference\u201d and \u201cotherness\u201d can therefore be seen as an ominous trend. \u2026 \u201cthe spectacularization of anthropology\u201d\u2026 cannot easily be distinguished from the process of empire. \u2026. [I]n so many of the various writings on anthropology, epistemology, textualization, and otherness that I have read, which in scope and material run the gamut from anthropology to history and literary theory, there is an almost total absence of any reference to\u2026 imperial intervention as a factor affecting the theoretical discussion. \u2026 There are armies, and armies of scholars at work politically, militarily, ideologically\u2026\u201d [11]
\nAnd is echoed by Robert Young:
\n\u201c\u2026The appropriation of the other as a form of knowledge within a totalizing system can thus be set alongside the history (if not the project) of European imperialism, and the constitution of the other as \u2018other\u2019 alongside racism and sexism.\u201d [12]
\nTzvetan Todorov analyzes anthropology historically using the term \u201cnew trinity\u201d to describe \u201cthe old-style soldier-conquistador: it consists of the scholar, the priest, and the merchant\u201d: The first collects information about the country, the second promotes its \u201cspiritual annexation\u201d and the third \u201cmakes certain of the profits.\u201d [13]
\nWestern anthropologists of India use native informants, who are typically poor and less educated villagers paid to produce the data, and who often place the scholar on a pedestal because of their own limited material resources and the glorification of India\u2019s xenophile elite. Scholars mine such data, filter it through western lens, legitimize it with western peers who are part of their own academic system, and too often assert this Orientalist construction as \u2018the truth\u2019. Few today do this overtly or intentionally. However:
\nThere is little counterbalancing information flow to help the villagers learn what was said and published about them by the scholar \u2014 except what the\u00a0same\u00a0<\/i>scholar feeds them.
\nThere are hardly any\u00a0independent<\/i>\u00a0surveys or focus groups in the field to ascertain whether villagers disagree with the ethnographies that become standard descriptions about them, or to point out what was left out, distorted or improperly contextualized.
\nVillagers should be able to give their own opinions of the scholar as the\u00a0\u2018firangi\u2019<\/i>\u00a0from America, including her exotic or peculiar ways: the poor\u00a0have<\/i>\u00a0agency. Researchers\u00a0do<\/i>\u00a0include how villagers react to, admit, get used to, or query the scholar, but this itself is usually the dominant culture\u2019s own filtered presentation.
\nAll measurements disrupt. I am unaware of any controlled studies comparing a neighboring village that was not disrupted by a prolonged scholarly intervention, so as to evaluate the social re-engineering side effect of scholarship.
\nWhile there are also many sensitive researchers, there needs to be greater recognition of the need for reciprocity. This calls for dis-intermediation of the role of anthropologist as knowledge broker between the villagers and the American students. I do not claim to know yet how to achieve true \u2018independence\u2019, but a plurality of cross-cultural worldviews would be better than one dominant view. For instance, besides reverse surveys, native informants could get invited to panels via video phones that are now very cost effective, with translators. Perhaps, the scholar-as-broker feels threatened that the native informants would be found to have agency after all, and to challenge decades of research. This is especially severe when the White Woman\u2019s Burden drives the scholar to impose her gift of agency on poor people presumed to have none.
\nAre the native informants becoming victims of the scholars\u2019 violation of trust? I propose that an interactive dialog between\u00a0equal<\/i>\u00a0civilizations become anthropology\u2019s new hermeneutics, and that scholars expand their work to enhance validation and symmetry.
\nAsymmetry II: Western Scholar of Texts Dominating the\u00a0Pandit<\/i><\/b>
\nThe use of\u00a0pandits<\/i>\u00a0is another method by which the west re-maps Indian culture. Many\u00a0pandits<\/i>\u00a0are simple and straightforward, not aggressive compared to many western scholars, not into power games or concern for royalty or intellectual property rights, and are trusting of western intentions. The misappropriation of basmati rice and other intellectual property may be used as an analog to appreciate that the Indian ethos does not emphasize personal ownership of know how (including spiritual knowledge), and that some of what the west does is unethical and exploitative as per the traditional Indian system of professional ethics. One must inquire whether the publish-or-perish syndrome and personal egos cause some scholars to try to own pre-existing knowledge and to reduce\u00a0pandits<\/i>\u00a0to native informants, whereas in their own tradition they deserve respect as great humble teachers.
\nFurthermore, since\u00a0pandits<\/i>\u00a0are rarely invited as respondents or co-authors when the work gets presented, they do not always find out what finally gets published, and their interpretation sometimes gets distorted along the way. For instance, when scholars write that Ganesha symbolizes the limp phallus, or when they over-interpret sati as a\u00a0defining<\/i>\u00a0feature of Hinduism, should the reader not be told what the insider has to say\u00a0also<\/i>? Sanskrit terms that deserve thick descriptions often get reduced to simplistic Eurocentric and Abrahamic representations [14]. Even comparative religion is often framed in a paradigm of western superiority. Is it that scholars see\u00a0pandits<\/i>\u00a0as not having western PhDs, and hence as not legitimate experts of their tradition?
\nAsymmetry III: Cognitive Scientist Dominating the\u00a0Yogi<\/i>\/Meditator<\/b>
\nThe laboratory measurement of higher states of consciousness achieved by advanced\u00a0yogis<\/i>\u00a0and meditators is at the cutting edge of transpersonal and humanistic psychology, mental health, neuroscience, and phenomenology. And some Indic theoretical models are at the center of the philosophy of quantum physics based emerging worldviews. But many ancient Hindu-Buddhist inner science discoveries are being misappropriated and\/or plagiarized:
\n\u2018Lucid Dreaming\u2019 is the western name for Indo-Tibetan\u00a0nidra yoga<\/i>, and Stanford\u2019s Stephen LaBerge is nowadays the acknowledged discoverer.
\n\u2018Mindfulness Meditation\u2019 is Jon-Kabat Zinn\u2019s repackaged and trademarked\u00a0vipassna<\/i>.
\nHerb Benson repackaged TM into his \u2018Relaxation Response\u2019 and now runs a multimillion dollar business based at Harvard, claiming these as\u00a0his<\/i>\u00a0discoveries. Numerous spin-offs in mainstream stress management and management consulting theories came from this source.
\nRupert Sheldrake recently \u2018came out\u2019 in an interview acknowledging that his famous theory known as \u2018Morphogenic Resonance\u2019 was developed while researching in India\u2019s ashrams.
\nKen Wilber started out very explicitly as an interpreter of Sri Aurobindo\u2019s philosophy for the benefit of psychologists, but now places himself as the discoverer on a higher pedestal.
\nEsalen Institute appropriated J. Krishnamurti and numerous other Indic thinkers into what its contemporary followers regard as it own \u2018New Worldview\u2019.
\nThomas Berry, Father Keating (in the footsteps of Bede Griffiths), and others have constructed the New Liberal Christianity, using Indic appropriations. Jewish scholars have likewise constructed the \u2018non-dualistic Kabala\u2019 based on Vedanta. While these pioneers recognize and admit the source, there followers are often ignorant and see these innovations as emerging entirely from Judeo-Christianity.
\nThis is only part of a long list: the core of the emerging \u2018western\u2019 worldview and cosmology involving physics, cognitive science, and biology is being rapidly built upon recycled Indic knowledge, but too frequently the source is being erased and over time.\u00a0Yogis<\/i>\u00a0and meditators, who should be regarded as co-discoverers, usually remain anonymous \u2018laboratory subjects\u2019 and native informants.
\nDoes this remind us of the way America is said to have been \u2018discovered\u2019 in 1492, as though the millions of Native Americans who lived here for thousands of years did not matter? It became a bona fide discovery only when Europeans registered it as such. Because land owned by the natives had not been recorded in European registration systems, their ownership was declared illegitimate. Much of the Renaissance and Enlightenment of Europe was based on the appropriation of Indic and Chinese civilizations, and yet these civilizations were demonized to justify colonialism [15].
\nI have been told in private by some of the cognitive science misappropriators that they respect Indic traditions greatly and personally know them as the sources, but that in public the distancing is good for book sales and for securing research grants, and that the stamp of \u2018western science\u2019 is what legitimizes these traditions. Their position, stated quite openly in many cases, is that\u00a0discovery occurs only when the west appropriates something<\/i>. This appears to be a racist theory of knowledge, one that denies agency and rights to non-westerners. Also, while plucking the fruits, there is no attempt by these appropriators to nurture the roots of the source traditions.
\nA plausible theoretical model for this is: The west plagiarizes from Hinduism-Buddhism with one hand (e.g. cognitive science), while another western hand stereotypes the source as \u2018caste, cows, curry\u2019 exotica and worse (via anthropology\/religious studies). The\u00a0academic arson<\/i>\u00a0referenced here is merely a continuation of the age old \u2018plunder while you denigrate the source\u2019<\/i>\u00a0process at work. It is a continuation of the paganization of pre-Christian religions while at the same time appropriating many central elements from the pagans into Christianity.
\nAsymmetry IV: Who Speaks as Insiders of Indian Culture?<\/b>
\nIn contrast with science, technology, business, and other professions where Indians now routinely occupy many high positions, Indology remains perhaps the last holdout of colonialism. However, Indians in the above mentioned fields, with successful experience in dealing with westerners, are seldom included as dialog representatives. The Diaspora that identifies with Indic traditions publicly and positively and the non-Indian Hindus in yoga-meditation centers are often\u00a0not<\/i>\u00a0the ones who the western academe dialogs with as spokespersons for the tradition.
\nInstead, it is a layer of elites from within the colonized culture who are groomed to become proxies for the tradition. Frantz Fanon explains:
\n\u201cThe colonialist bourgeoisie\u2026 had in fact deeply implanted in the minds of the colonized intellectual that the essential qualities remain eternal in spite of all the blunders men may make: the essential qualities of the West, of course.\u201d [16]
\nIn the case of Indians, such persons are commonly referred to as Macaulayites, after Lord Macaulay, who developed this strategy in 1835 as a way to create Indian intellectual sepoys serving the British rule. The program was highly successful and has now assumed a postcolonial life of its own. Eurocentric representation systems have been installed into the minds of elite Indians, who now function as the internal agents working from within Indian society, typically remote controlled by a western incentive system \u2013 of visas, jobs, foreign travel, grants, and various forms of career advancement. The Eurocentric mental representation is commonly applied subliminally, and often there is only slight self-awareness that this is being done. Many westernized Indians are radically convinced that the indigenous tradition is a backward one, and that their mission in life is to uproot it and replace it with a superior western import \u2013 often done with a passion as though to earn a ticket to neo-white status. They often consider biases against Indic traditions as a great compliment to their own sense of modernity, and also as a great western gift to the Indians, and volunteer as partners to facilitate this process. When this mental colonialism is pointed out to them, it often evokes severe anger and defensiveness.
\nRichard Crasta, a Goan Christian now living in New York, is rather blunt about the obsession to become a Macaulayite by trying to imitate the image of the dominant culture,
\n\u201c\u2026whether we be Bombayites trying to put on Oxford accents and fake a knowledge of cheeses and wines; or whether we be Delhi literati striving to make a favorable impression on Delhi\u2019s western diplomats \u2013 minor potentates who have, either by their power to throw parties and patronize locals and soak\u2019em up with Scotch and grant them visas, favors, or cultural junkets, or by their personal charm, become resident reminders of the superiority and the power of the white race.\u201d [17]
\nHe explains that the end result is a dislocation from the roots:
\n\u201c\u2026ethnic shame is a phenomenon that is particularly intense among Indians abroad\u2026 Ethnic shame is the opposite of ethnic pride\u2026 and it is a sublime example of the success of colonialism in co-opting us in our own subversion, and in our alienation from our culture and our earth, and ultimately the extinction of our own culture\u2026 [I]t contributes to our collusion with the forces that tend to make us invisible in a foreign society.\u201d [18]
\nEventually this turns into hate for the tradition as a way to assume superiority by proving one\u2019s alienation from it:
\n\u201cThe India Haters Club is growing larger and larger, and its largest contingent is probably the millions ofIndians<\/i>\u00a0for whom a few bitter experiences of betrayal have pushed them over the edge into self-hatred:Yes, my skin is brown, but my soul is white<\/i>.\u201d [19]
\nYet, the Macaulayites remain second class in the western space, notwithstanding whatever financial success and even prestigious positions they attain:
\n\u201cThis Western carrot of acceptance and riches is accompanied by a stick:\u00a0Do not cross the boundaries. Always remember your place\u2026<\/i>the carrot and stick are so discreetly transferred by Third World writers onto their\u00a0internal<\/i>\u00a0censor that they are often unconscious of their own self-censorship.\u201d [20]
\nAlong with Macaulayites, Indian Marxists \u2014\u00a0born again<\/i>\u00a0as \u2018progressives\u2019 after the Cold War \u2014 dominate India\u2019s academe, and often power broker as strategic allies of western academicians. But there are many contradictions in these \u2018experts on India\u2019:
\n(i) Such Indian scholars, despite their Subaltern studies, are often alien to the masses and culture of India, and disrespect and caricaturize Hinduism in a reductionist Eurocentric way.
\n(ii) They know mainly western thought and hermeneutics. Few have education in Sanskrit or the Indian Classics, which were abolished in post-Independence India in the name of \u2018secularism\u2019 and to promote \u2018modernity\u2019 by eradicating \u2018intellectual backwardness\u2019. (By contrast, in the west most experts in the western humanities have a grounding in Greek Classics.) To get a good PhD in Sanskrit, Indology, or Religious Studies, one must go to a university in the west, as India\u2019s own education system abolished these disciplines.
\n(iii) Yet, their personal careers are based on being proxies for the very tradition that they regard as a scourge.
\nThe phenomenon of South Asianizing, which has emerged from this confluence of excessive ethnography and Indian Macaulayism, has subverted Hinduism\u2019s universal truth claims. Contrast this with other world religions \u2014 for instance, Christianity is not\u00a0defined<\/i>\u00a0in terms of Middle Eastern ethnography, although it is studied\u00a0also<\/i>\u00a0in sociological terms. Furthermore, the Diaspora feels that the ethnographies of South Asia get superimposed as their image.
\nIt is the ethnography of elitist anti-tradition Indians that would make a fascinating field of research. Defensive about their awkward position, these elitists often brand anyone speaking assertively for Indic traditions as Hindutva, saffronist, fundamentalist, fascist, fanatic, neo-BJP, nationalist, or equivalent [21]. In fact, the only way to be a good Hindu in the eyes of some is to behave in accordance with Orientalist images. This name-calling has now been picked up by many western scholars as well.
\nAsymmetry V: Politics of Representation and Power<\/b>
\nThere is asymmetry also in the license to criticize: western scholars control the\u00a0vyakhya<\/i>\u00a0(i.e. hermeneutics, right to criticize, what is deemed important and interesting, etc.), manage the\u00a0adhikara<\/i>\u00a0(i.e. appoint those in charge of gate-keeping the academic channels), and sometimes even field the persons who represent Indic traditions. When criticized by truly\u00a0independent<\/i>\u00a0Indians (i.e. those who do not seek visas, PhDs, jobs, tenure, etc.), some academic scholars have resorted to intimidating name-calling to affect censorship. This attack on the messenger serves to deflect from the message.
\nCrasta\u2019s reaction is an outburst:
\n\u201cWe refuse to perform monkey-dances for your pleasure. And what makes you think we cannot be spiritual and sexy at the same time? That is your own hang-up. We\u2019ve become prisoners of your ideology. We are invisible to you. Either we are what you want to see in us, or we don\u2019t exist.\u201d [22]
\nMany culturally proud Indians feel disenfranchised and outcast in the academic study of their traditions, perhaps because of a smaller presence of the practitioner-scholar than in the case of Buddhism, for instance. Until two years ago, there was one-directional name-calling, only by the \u2018licensed\u2019 scholars. But then Hindus started several Internet forums which scholars could not control, and these have become vehicles to mobilize and develop counter name-calling, returning in kind the ad hominems used by scholars. Frankly, this is unproductive, and the time has come to move beyond rudeness and name-calling in\u00a0either<\/i>direction.
\nMy survey shows that representation systems and power are mutually interdependent. Many Indians blame the current world power structure, but that part is self-evident. It is simply a statement that there is a problem, but one must understand the mechanisms behind this power imbalance and how to alter them. Here is my model: Ross Perot pioneered \u2018facilities management\u2019, a field wherein the supplier takes over the entire \u2018burden\u2019 of information management on behalf of the client, including and especially the staff, the infra-structure and the total responsibility for results. As times goes by, the supplier gains greater control over the client, and the client loses freedom, independence, and even the know how to be able to get rid of the supplier at a future date.
\nIn an analogous manner, the British did facilities management for India\u2019s Nawabs and Rajas \u2014 operated their armies, collected taxes on their behalf, educated their citizens as they deemed fit, operated the courts, etc. \u2014 who had already become nominal second tier rulers under the Mughals. These local rulers were the \u2018clients\u2019 and the British East India Company (later to become the British Empire of Queen Victoria) was the facilities manager. Under the revenue sharing arrangements, the local ruler received a tiny fraction (usually under 10%) of the taxes collected by the British (often involving draconian tax rates). Additionally, the massive profit margin on trade between India and Europe was also Britain\u2019s to keep, besides the transfer of textiles, steel and other essentials of the Industrial Revolution from India to Britain. The Indian ruler was a nominal figurehead in the arrangement, so as to preserve the appearance that the British were in fact there to help upgrade the level of civilization on his behalf. This facilities management was the greatest transfer of wealth between one place and another ever in human history.
\nAs part of this facilities management \u2018contract\u2019, the British also became trustees of the scholarship and hence the intellectual representation systems of India. They researched Indic traditions, translated and interpreted the texts. They constructed the famous interpretation of the Manusmriti so as to be able to say that they were in fact enforcing Hindu law in ruling India. The sophisticated technique, still in use, has been to first master Sanskrit texts, so as to understand the native representation system; then to map Indic texts and re-interpret them using the western meta-narrative discreetly and invisibly, while maintaining the aura of authenticity by using enough Sanskrit terms.\u00a0Hindus continue to accept a de facto facilities management arrangement by letting outsiders control Indic intellectual know how and identity. There is no other major world tradition so abandoned intellectually by its own people.<\/i>\u00a0Remedy: both the insider and the outsider view of a tradition must be represented in a balanced way.
\nThe criticism of Hinduism in academe is done in a fashion that it appears to be fair. The evidence is presented as authentic Hindu understanding, and the motive is claimed to be the well-being of the oppressed Hindus \u2014 to save them from themselves. Never mind that no defense side is often practical given the above asymmetries, and evidence is often exaggerated. Hindus are co-opted as Macaulayites to make the kangaroo court seem legitimate, and there has been no shortage of such opportunistic Hindus. The trial of Sri Ramakrishna\u00a0in absentia<\/i>, with no defense side allowed except by way of a reaction against the verdict, is a recent example. [23] Most seriously, the representation system in which the discourse takes place, and in which modern Indians have been programmed to think, is of the west and by the west, and under the intellectual, financial and political control of the west.
\nNicholas Gier used \u201cTitanism\u201d to describe Hindu gurus who are larger than life and assume unquestionable authority. But in the Indian mind, the West has a Titanic presence. There are western\u00a0Scholar Titans<\/i>\u00a0now dominating Hinduism Studies, who have usurped the ultimate authority that traditionally belonged to the Vedas \u2014 a sort of colonialism.
\nThe Gandhian Response<\/b>
\nGandhi\u2019s innovation in reversing the massively asymmetric power that the British enjoyed was based on two profound insights: (1) The British self-identity was built on the deeply rooted belief that the British were highly\u00a0civilized<\/i>\u00a0(and hence the White Man\u2019s Burden to go around civilizing others.) (2) The British depended upon the Indians as consumers, having appropriated India\u2019s centuries of supremacy in textiles and steel exports, and reduced Indians to poor consumers. On #1, Gandhi continually challenged them by taking the moral high ground, compelling them to respond as civilized people, which they could not refuse to do, until the moral standard he set became too high for the British and their system imploded. On #2, he initiated successful consumer boycotts and indigenous production.
\nLearning from #1: When asked what he thought of British civilization, Gandhi is said to have replied, \u201cThat would be a good idea.\u201d I would have to give the same assessment of western\u00a0objective<\/i>\u00a0scholarship. Being seen as\u00a0objective<\/i>\u00a0is to the academicians of Indic traditions what being civilized was to the British. Hence, by compelling them to be objective \u2014 in receiving criticism, in acknowledging falsities that they have perpetuated, in re-examining the asymmetries \u2014 we have our best chance to change the very system of objective scholarship that they control. Since\u00a0sat-chit-anand<\/i>\u00a0is everyone\u2019s inherent nature, western scholars will of their own begin to distance themselves from their abusive cohorts. Learning from #2: A growing number of students in class nowadays are Indian Americans. Once these and other\u00a0consumers<\/i>\u00a0of the scholarship de-legitimize the instances of abusive scholarship, the scholars will have to change.
\nMany western scholars have already been very sympathetic, have devoted their lives to positive and fair scholarship, and have had the courage to step out of the orthodoxy of scholarship. We need more truly independent scholars to stand up:
\n\u201cIt is indeed high time that independent, unattached scholarship\u2026 shed the constricting crutches of corporatist paradigms, tied to the newest fashion of academic respectability, to perform the simple, but signal, intellectual service required of a scholar \u2014 of\u00a0thinking for oneself<\/i>.\u201d [24]
\nReferences:<\/b>
\n[1]\u00a0The Colonizer\u2019s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History<\/i>, by J.M. Blaut. The Guilford Press, New York, NY. P.11.
\n[2]\u00a0The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of \u201cthe Other\u201d and the Myth of Modernity<\/i>, by Enrique Dussel. Translated by Michael D. Barber. The Continuum Publishing Company, New York, NY. Pp. 44; 64-67.
\n[3] Frantz Fanon,\u00a0The Wretched of the Earth<\/i>. P.120.
\n[4]\u00a0Cross-Cultural Conversation<\/i>, Edited by Anindita Niyogi Balslev. The American Academy of Religion. Pp.23-24.
\n[5]\u00a0India and Europe<\/i>, by W. Halbfass. First edition, Delhi, MLBD, P. 44.
\n[6] Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Spring 2001. P.2.
\n[7]\u00a0Cross-Cultural Conversation<\/i>, Edited by Anindita Niyogi Balslev. The American Academy of Religion. Pp. 24; 37-38.
\n[8] For instance: (i) I have criticized the introduction of astrology as a \u2018science\u2019 into the academic curriculum, and the notion that there is a \u2018Vedic Science\u2019. (I have argued that Newton\u2019s Laws of Gravitation are not \u2018English Laws\u2019 or \u2018Christian Science\u2019). (ii) I have expressed concern that the Aryan theory controversy is overdone in its significance, at the expense of more serious issues. (iii) I do not subscribe to the literalist interpretation of the Puranas \u2013 neither to claim hi-tech accomplishments (that the Hindutva claim), and nor to literally interpret the verses suggesting social abuse (that westerners like to rub in). (iv) I have written about the general intellectual shallowness in many instances of Hindutva scholarship, at least in its current stage. (v) I am against the demolishment of mosques, even when there is compelling evidence (including from Muslim sources) of some of these having being built by destroying Hindu temples.
\n[9] Karen Brown, the anthropologist of religion, speaking at the World Conference on \u201cGender and Orality\u201d \u2014 May 2001, Claremont CA.
\n[10]\u00a0Representing the Colonized: Anthropology\u2019s Interlocutors<\/i>, by Edward W. Said,\u00a0Critical Inquiry<\/i>, Volume 15 Winter 1989. Pp. 217-224.
\n[11]\u00a0Representing the Colonized: Anthropology\u2019s Interlocutors<\/i>, by Edward W. Said,\u00a0Critical Inquiry<\/i>, Volume 15 Winter 1989. Pp. 213-214.
\n[12]\u00a0White Mythologies: Writing History and the West<\/i>, by Robert Young. Routledge, London. 1990. P.4.
\n[13]\u00a0The Conquest of America<\/i>, by Tzvetan Todorov P. 175.
\n[14] Examples of terms deserving better treatment include:\u00a0murti, deva, varna, lingam, tantra, agni, sati, atman<\/i>, etc.
\n[15] See for example, J. J. Clark\u2019s book,\u00a0Oriental Enlightenment<\/i>.
\n[16] Frantz Fanon,\u00a0The Wretched of the Earth.<\/i>
\n[17]\u00a0Impressing the Whites: The New International Slavery<\/i>, by Richard Crasta. Invisible Man Books. Pp. 10-11.
\n[18] ibid. Pp. 100-103.
\n[19] ibid. P. 107.
\n[20] ibid. P.15.
\n[21] As one example only, those adopting a\u00a0literalist interpretation<\/i>\u00a0of Indian texts are deemed fanatics, nationalists, and fundamentalists. But in Bible Studies, literalist interpretations are a well-respected hermeneutical approach. George Gallup\u2019s book of surveys of Americans\u2019 religious beliefs says that over 50% of all Americans believe in the\u00a0literal<\/i>\u00a0interpretation of the Bible. Yet, we don\u2019t denounce the majority of Americans as fundamentalist-fanatics. In the case of Islam, the Koran is viewed as the literal history and not metaphorically by the mainstream. Personally, I prefer the metaphorical interpretation of all religious texts, but feel that literalist interpretations are a person\u2019s right without facing abuses.
\n[22] Crasta. P. 79.
\n[23] See Swami Tyagananda\u2019s criticism of the book,\u00a0Kali\u2019s Child<\/i>\u00a0posted at:\u00a0http:\/\/www.infinityfoundation.com\/mandala\/s_rv\/s_rv_tyaga_kali1_frameset.htm<\/a>
\n[24]\u00a0Breaking With The Enlightenment<\/i>, by Rajani Kannepalli Kanth. Humanities Press, New Jersey, 1997. P. xv.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The History In contrast with the\u00a0clash\u00a0of civilizations now being popularized, I would much rather propose a\u00a0dialogamong them. But what are the historical reasons for lack of this dialog, and what prevents this from becoming the\u00a0top\u00a0priority for humanity today? I researched the writings of eminent scholars in a variety of specialties, such as history, multiculturalism, colonialism, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1952],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37079"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}