So, Rohan M, did Sheldon Pollock get in touch with you to get the $5.2 m.?

How many have read even a single book of Catamaran Ventures? -- Rohan Murty on a conspiracy theory.

Kalyanaraman

Readers' opinions (152)

• Newest
• Oldest
• Recommended (1)
• Most Discussed
• Agree
• Disagree

Harsha (Kolkata)

20 Minutes ago Mr. Rohan Murty begins by saying " It is quite rich to sit in the peanut gallery, pass comments and throw empty shells at those who are actually rolling their sleeves up and working on the ground " Peanut Gallery really! I am shocked that he has used such a ridiculous term for 132 highly educated and well respected Indian Academics. That is my very 1st objection. In our culture we are taught to respect our guru's. Here we have Mr. Rohan Murty trying to get a translation of Indian Classics into English and the least I expect is that he has some basic Samskaras. The tone of his quote obviously indicates the complete opposite. Also to say that people are "throwing empty shells at people doing real work at the ground " is untrue. Mr. Murty they are not throwing anything at you. Infact the petition starts with a deep appreciation for what you are trying to achieve. I am sharing the entire 1st paragraph of the petition to show case that point " We the undersigned would like to convey our deep appreciation for your good intentions and financial commitment to establish the Murty Classical Library of India, a landmark project to translate 500 volumes of traditional Indian literature into English. We appreciate the motives of making our civilization’s great literature available to the modern youth who are educated in English, and who are unfortunately not trained in Indian languages." 

Rohan Murty says American Indologist Sheldon Pollock to stay

By Divya Shekhar & Indulekha Aravind, ET Bureau | Mar 03, 2016, 12.41 AM IST

BENGALURU: Rohan Murty has come out swinging in favour of an American Indologist who has raised the hackles of a group seeking his ouster as the editor of a classical library he has funded.

In his first public comments on the issue, Murty, the son of Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy, said that Sheldon Pollock will continue to oversee the translation of Indian classics into English for several more years.

"It is quite rich to sit in the peanut gallery, pass comments and throw empty shells at those who are actually rolling their sleeves up and working on the ground," said Murty, 33, a junior fellow at Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Murty was responding to an online petition addressed to him and his father.
The online petition has been signed by 132 academics and public figures, including former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami.

The group started its petition to oust the Columbia University professor from the Murty Classical Library of India (MCLI) on change.org on Sunday."

Pollock has been critical to the success of the library, and Harvard and I look forward to having him on board for many years to come," said Murty, whose project has so far published nine translations of ancient Indian texts. Four more volumes are due next year.

"I doubt if these people have read even a single book that we have published. I want to hear in which book we have published, in which line or page there is a problem, and in what context, and why," said Murty, who for about a year was executive assistant to Narayana Murthy during the latter's comeback to Infosys. "I think that is a more constructive, positive way, rather than saying that this is a conspiracy theory."

MCLI was launched by Murty with an endowment of $5.2 million in 2010 with the objective of producing high-quality translations of ancient Indian classics every year.

Several signatories The petition, which has several IIT professors as signatories, alleges that Pollock "has deep antipathy towards many of the ideals and values cherished...in our civilisation".

But considering that Pollock has been at the helm of the effort for six years, the immediate provocation for circulating the petition seems be that he was a signatory to recent statements of international academics condemning the "actions of JNU authorities and the government of India against separatist groups..."Murty said not one of the signatories had approached him since he launched the library and questioned the timing of the petition instead.

"What stopped any of these people from getting in touch with me? Not one single person came forward, which is incredible," he said. Murty, who is also the cofounder of Catamaran Ventures, said the library only commissions the "best possible scholar for that particular language. We will not judge on nationality, gender, race, creed or colour".

The root of the problem, he said, is that there aren't more scholars in India capable of carrying out such translations from ancient literature. "What can we do to address this? Everything else is just noise."\

Read full article here.

Sheldon Pollock is central to the classical library project, says Rohan Murty

In his first public comments on an online petition targeting Sheldon Pollock, the well-known Sanskrit scholar heading his initiative to translate ancient Indian classics into English,Rohan Murty reiterates his faith in Pollock's work. He speaks about the process of selectingtranslators for Murty Classical Libray, set up with a $5.2 million endowment from him, and the real problem in translating ancient Indian classics, which is a lack of young scholars in ancient languages in India. Edited excerpts from an interview with ET's Indulekha Aravindand Divya Shekhar.

How do you decide the translator and which works will be translated?

We have a board of editors who are a cross-section of scholars -- remember, this is one of the most complex translation efforts, spanning 14 languages. Anybody can go to our website and download a PDF and submit their proposal, also making a case for that particular translation. We want high quality translations that will stand the test of time. The editors go through the proposal and decide using a whole bunch of heuristics. Once they approve it, the translator gets money from MCLI to support their efforts.

So, the process is very open?

Everything's on the website, there's no mystery here. I know we have translators in India, Israel, France, Belgium, the UK, the US, Canada and a couple more others working on this, which is pretty incredible. We go wherever in the world we have to, to find the best possible scholar for that particular language -- and that's the only metric we work on. We will not judge on nationality, gender, race, creed, colour. The moment we do, we'd be compromising on the integrity of the series. Much like the best scholars of Shakespeare are not necessarily sitting in England!

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say this effort would not have taken this shape without Sheldon Pollock?

It would not be an exaggeration to say that without Sheldon, the effort would not have taken the shape that it has. This effort would have happened ultimately no matter who was at the helm, to be very honest. But I thought of translating only Sanskrit text but Sheldon told me, "Rohan, what about your own mother tongue, Kannada?" It was he who introduced the idea of translating texts in other Indian languages.He has a very deep respect for Indian philosophy and his body of work is quite extraordinary. MCLI has been fortunate to have Professor Pollock as the general editor. He has been critical to the Library's success, and Harvard and I look forward to having him on board for many years to come

Do you ever get asked about your efforts, "Why not in India"?

We started this is 2009. Since then, not one person, or any of these people who have signed that petition have bothered to write to me. What stopped any of these people from getting in touch with me? So I find that it is quite rich to sit in a peanut gallery, pass comments and throw empty shells at those who are actually rolling their sleeves up and working on the ground. 

I have no biases that I will support efforts only in India. Wherever there are compelling scholars with the energy and ideas like Sheldon, I would obviously want to work with people like those.

The online petition circulated against professor Pollock raised several allegations...

I doubt if these people have read even a single book that we have published. I want to hear in which book we have published, in which line or page, there is a problem; and in what context, and why it is a problem. That is useful to me. Then, we can discuss. I think that is a more constructive, positive way, rather than saying that this is a conspiracy theory.

Do you think the political atmosphere is affecting our literary and cultural institutions?

I do not wish to comment on anything but the books. Everybody has their personal beliefs. Just because we are working on an effort like this, I cannot be telling anyone what to believe in. If we want to do more initiatives (like MCLI) in India, let's do it. Let us not waste time. Let's come out with some great ideas, discuss and create a high kind of scholarship here. Those are the kind of things that interest me. And this effort is just the first of many that I am going to do.

In your view, what is the real roadblock to efforts like yours?

Indian public disagrees with Rohan Murty's defensiveness

Rajiv Malhotra posted a news item which appeared in the Economic Times dated 3 March 2016.

Rajiv says:
Rohan Murty defends the choice of Pollock (as expected) with the following words:

"The root of the problem, he said, is that there aren't more scholars in India capable of carrying out such translations from ancient literature."

So he admits what I have said, namely, that the Murthys and their supporters believe Indians are not up to the job of Indology. Firstly, is this true? Secondly, if true, is it curable with a program to upgrade the quality and quantity of Indology in India? Or is it some kind of inferiority we Indians inherently have compared to Westerners?

If it is curable, then all the more we ought to bring about this upgrade in India's own Indology. To feed US Indology is shortsighted, and makes the gap even worse.

JP weighs in:

I think now the focus of discussion should be on Rohan Murthy's words, "The root of the problem, he said, is that there aren't more scholars in India capable of carrying out such translations from ancient literature."
1. Are there NO SCHOLARS in India capable to carry out such a work?
2. Rohan Murthy seems to have evaluated whole of Indian scholars to make such a CONCLUSIVE remark.
3. On the statement below in italics, Did Murthy make a public announcement of his library and did he call for all the scholars and make an evaluation before settling in for Pollock?

"Murty said not one of the signatories had approached him since he launched the library and questioned the timing of the petition instead. What stopped any of these people from getting in touch with me? Not one single person came forward, which is incredible," 

Rajiv: I doubt he did anything similar to my tour across India to get to know traditional scholars both in Sanskrit universities and those in Hindu matthas. This requires getting out of comfort zone and doing serious tapasya.

Srinath chips in:

Fact is that rohan ultimately is a junior money bag with no domain knowledge in the very field he is outsourcing.

He also (arrogantly) believes that it wasn't his due diligence needed re: how many insider scholars exist etc. rather it is incumbent on those scholars themselves to engage with him before he undertook such project.

All this points to the same dogma "have money will do" and because I can throw $ therefore I'm not the one lacking in research but others are (!)

Only solution for such deep rooted anti samskrti is for insider movement to devalue products resulting from this "library" by presenting authentic alternatives.

Until then arrogant rich boys will keep referring to genuine samskrt and India based scholars as "peanut gallery"...

Subramanian says:

He also asks which lines in his translations do people have a problem with , and doubts that any of the critics have read any of the translated volumes. (...)

Rajiv: Question should be whether ANYONE WHATSOEVER has read their volumes?

Harish opines:

Murthy seems to have not got(or willingly ignored) the main question raised in the petition.

The potential damage that could be inflicted by a person who carries such deep biases(replete in his earlier papers).

I would have expected a well intentioned person to explain/devise a mechanism that prevents such problems. Instead, he deftly deflects the question by digressing to JNU. This for me suggests some degree of complicity. (Alas, this petition didn't happen before the JNU issue).

Prof Lal comes in:

I wonder what would Murty(s) would feel and say if an American said that India does not have any computer expertise and Indians do not know what is the meaning of computer software and hardware!

Murty (s) should simply say that their business interest in USA has forced them to take Pollack. They should be just a businessmen and should not try to judge something of which they do not know even 'a'. I will leave the world of academic if Mr. Murty(s) can read out one para of Sanskrit text or one hymn from any of the Vedas. Money does not make one scholar or intellectual.

Look at their attitude! USA does not have even fraction of what India has in terms of Sanskrit scholarship. Let Murty(s) carry "white man's burden and be their slave -- both mentally and physically", but should not impose it on nation. Many of you may recall that N. Murty spent a huge money and many articles came to be written in magazines and news papers that he is the right person to be the President of India. My God!

Here is a suggestion. Boycott being part of Murty-Pollack project in any way -- be it translation, editing, writing or even reading and citing. No one can stop you doing that.

Mallika writes:

There is a lot more to Narayan Murthy family's obsession with being in good books of WASPs than just inferiority complex. I think they consider themselves Globalized elite just like previous years "Bhandralok".

N Murthy's Son Ii Law is a Conservative member of British Parliament. His business model is still based on labor arbitrage for which easy visa regime is a necessity. He was a member of Ford Foundation and also was on NDTV board. NDTV has close connections with Communists and Congress.

So, Hindus should not expect anything from him.In fact should be vary of his willingness to harm Hindu civilization for personal reasons. More important issue is to inform our own about the BI forces and our own elites propensity to be in bed with Hinduphobic forces.

The least we can do is to popularize TBFS and ensure that our children do not take any courses in South Asian, Hinduism courses from any American Univ. Boycott the courses, then South Asianites will be under pressure and learn about hinduism from AVG, Chinmaya Mission or traditional Indian Scholars.

Arun joins the discussion:

If we take Rohan Murty seriously, in the spirit of purva-paksha, see what the petition to oust Pollock has caused several issues to be surfaced in a very public way:

1. Why do the (English-speaking) elite believe that India lacks the scholars? And why are they so miserly in growing Indian scholarship?

2. The problem of inadequate number of scholars (i.e., India has some great scholars, but far too few for a country of the size of India) can be highlighted.
What about the non-English elite, exemplified by PM Modiji think, and what do they plan to do about it?

3. That in turn leads to the whole question - what is the track that India has been on since Independence? How did India get into the position that it now seems to have to outsource the preservation popularization of its cultural DNA? What have the whole cohort of Romila Thapar and others been doing all these so many years? Isn't the failure of modern Indian universities highlighted? And most important, what is India going to do about it?

This beautiful opening to raise all these issues to a national debate and increasing public consciousness should not be lost by slinging about ad hominem attacks. This is no longer dismissable as some Hindutva thing; the problem of sustaining the Indian samskriti has been pointed out by no less than the Murtys.

Look at it: one, give some long-missing recognition to Indian scholars who can do the translations of high quality. Two, that there may not be enough to do the 500 books in the stipulated period may be highlighted, and the cause for this situation may be discussed. Three, what will the government, and philantropists and universities and people do to remedy the situation? And so on.

Please, ultimately, the samskriti is not in these books or in the shastras; it is in the practice. Rajivji is struggling to bring back purva-paksha, please try to practice it in as many situations as you can. All the shastras and literature of the past are the end-product of these and other practices we have forgotten, and not the cause. The paw mark in the soil shows the passage of a tiger, we want to revive the tiger, more paw marks will follow. What we have are the literary traces of a great civilization, merely cherishing its paw marks will not revive it. 

Hari's comment made to ET is reproduced below:

Rohan, we must understand that in Indian culture several version of interpretation of Itihas, Purans, Vedas and Upnishads is available in various Indian and foreign languages. And you would understand the difference between them only if you read. But fortunately all these translation of insiders are collective have one view which is opposite to secular view. Just compare Ramayana Translation version of Insider and outsider. But do you have time for that?

Money is yours. Choice is yours. Several secular people before Pollock has tried to misinterpret our culture and this is another attempt. But this time it is huge because of your money power and internet age. You choose insider or outsider that is your choice.

But being Indian whenever people like you fund secular translation of our indian heritiage we as an insider and practitioner has full right to stand and stop you. Ultimately it is not about only money and profit of yours but about mis-interpretation of culture.

Unfortunately because of foreign education your mind trusted secular / foreigners more than the practioner and you instead of doing due dilignece and research of scholars here in India you took shortest popular route. So you chose the best of the Ameria! And now saying that in India we do not have scholars to do the kind of work which you are doing.

In india you will find all kind of people. They can do secular translation for you and secred also. But I think you were looking for a person who can do secular translation of our heritage.

http://beingdifferentforum.blogspot.in/2016/03/indian-public-disagrees-with-rohan.html

Murthy Colonial Library - It will create literature through colonizer's lens. A Murthy and sons are great sepoys. 

Anil Mishra ()

1 Follower

Dr. M.Bezboruah, Esq (Washington, DC. USA)

1 Hour ago

A degree from Cornell and some association with the Harvard does not make one "exceptional"; the tone and the tenor of the remarks from this young Murthy, unfortunately, reflects the level of immaturity unexpected from someone who is a First Generation rich! Hopefully, this young man and his father will realize that real wisdom lies in the coarse hands of the elderly lady who toiled to make elder Murthy educated, and in the teeming other millions of Indians who are tempered with their wisdom  ..

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.comhttp://economictimes.indiatimes.com/rohan-murty-says-american-indologist-sheldon-pollock-to-stay/opinions/51231553.cms?prtpage=1&utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

THE DEATH OF SANSKRIT

1. In the age of Hindu identity politics (Hindutva) inaugurated in the 1990s by the ascendancy of the Indian People’s Party (Bharatiya Janata Party) and its ideological auxiliary, the World Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Indian cultural and religious nationalism has been promulgating ever more distorted images of India’s past. Few things are as central to this revisionism as Sanskrit, the dominant culture language of precolonial southern Asia outside the Persianate order. Hindutva propagandists have sought to show, for example, that Sanskrit was indigenous to India, and they purport to decipher Indus Valley seals to prove its presence two millennia before it actually came into existence. In a farcical repetition of Romantic myths of primevality, Sanskrit is considered—according to the characteristic hyperbole of the VHP—the source and sole preserver of world culture.

2. Some might argue that as a learned language of intellectual discourse and belles lettres, Sanskrit had never been exactly alive in the first place. But the usual distinction in play here between living and dead languages is more than a little naive. It cannot accommodate the fact that all written languages are learned, and therefore in some sense frozen in time (“dead”); or, conversely, that such languages often are as supple and dynamically changing (“alive”) as so-called natural ones. Yet the assumption that Sanskrit was never alive has discouraged the attempt to grasp its later history; after all, what is born dead has no later history. As a result, there exist no good accounts or theorizations of the end of the cultural order that for two millennia exerted a trans-regional influence across Asia-South, Southeast, Inner, and even East Asia- that was unparalleled until the rise of Americanism and global English. We have no clear understanding of whether, and if so, when, Sanskrit culture ceased to make history; whether, and if so, why, it proved incapable of preserving into the present the creative vitality it displayed in earlier epochs, and what this loss of affectivity might reveal about those factors within the wider world of society and polity that had kept it vital.

3. In the memorable year of 1857, a Gujarati poet, Dalpatram Dahyabhai, was the first to speak of the death of Sanskrit:

4. The later history of Latin shows striking commonalities with Sanskrit. Both died slowly, and earliest as a vehicle of literary expression, while much longer retaining significance for learned discourse with its universalist claims. Both were subject to periodic renewals or forced rebirths, sometimes in connection with a politics of trans-local aspiration (Carolingian, Ottonian, Humanist; fifteenth-century Kashmir under Zain-ul-‘abidin, eighteenth-century Maha- rashtra under the Peshwas; the Wodeyar court of early-nineteenth-century Mysore). At the same time, paradoxically (this is certainly true for India, at least), both came to be ever more exclusively associated with narrow forms of religion and priestcraft, despite centuries of a secular aesthetic. Yet the differences between the two are equally instructive.

5. For one thing, Sanskrit literary culture was never affected by communicative incompetence, which began to enfeeble Latin from at least the ninth century. The process of vernacularization in India, in so many ways comparable to the European case, was nowhere a consequence of growing Sanskrit ignorance.

6. One causal account, however, for all the currency it enjoys in the contemporary climate, can be dismissed at once: that which traces the decline of Sanskrit culture to the coming of Muslim power.The evidence adduced here shows this to be historically untenable. It was not “alien rule un- sympathetic to kavya” and a “desperate struggle with barbarous invaders” that sapped the strength of Sanskrit literature. In fact, it was often the barbarous invader who sought to revive Sanskrit.

RAMAYANA AND POLITICAL IMAGINATION IN INDIA

1. I suggest in what follows that the Ramayana came alive in the realm of public political discourse in western and central India in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries in a dramatic and unparalleled way. I believe the text offers unique imaginative instruments-in fact, two linked instruments-whereby, on the one hand, a divine political order can be conceptualized, narrated, and historically grounded, and, on the other, a fully demonized Other can be categorized, counterposed, and condemned. The makers of elite culture in medieval South Asia chose these instruments for the work of divinization and demonization at this historical moment because of the emergence of two enabling conditions. One was the peculiar salience that a far older political theology now seems to have achieved in the service of the legitimation or enhancement or perhaps just self-understanding of kingship. The other was the appearance of Others who-whether, in fact, they presented an unprecedented unassimilability or could opportunistically be represented as such-were especially vulnerable to the demonizing formulation the Ramayana made available.

2. At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries, several major cultic centers devoted to Rama are created or reinvigorated.

3. To infer from temples bearing Rama reliefs that a cult of Rama existed in the ninth and tenth centuries is not possible…

4. I am not asserting, then, that Rama was never the object of cultic worship prior to the period with which I am concerned here. Even less am I claiming that the Rama cult, when it did arise, superseded all others….. What is certain, however, is that the cult of Rama has a history. At first extraordinarily restricted in time and space, it exhibits striking efflorescence and assumes a prominent place within the context of a political theology from the end of the twelfth century onward, achieving in some instances a centrality by the middle of the fourteenth……..

5. The Ramayana supplies serious material to the political imagination of premodern India as coded in the inscriptional record only from the later medieval period on; references in the first millennium are remarkably few but gain in frequency and complexity especially after the twelfth century.

6. The public discourse of major dynasties for centuries made virtually no appropriation of the Rama theme. In the records of the Gurjara-Pratihara empire for example, it seems that reference to Rama is altogether absent (Puri 1986:211). There is one exception, however: the ninth-century Gwalior prasasti of King Bhoja. This record, commemorating the construction of a domestic Visnu shrine, reads in vs. 3, “In their family [i.e., the family of the solar kings], [in which] the luster [of Visnu…eventually set foot, Rama of auspicious birth made a war of destruction and slaughter against the demons . . . in which Ravana was killed.”

7. Whereas the Ramayana may certainly have played a substantial role, in some instances a central role, in the political imagination of earlier India, it comes to be deployed with a fuller and more referentially direct expression-in royal cultic, documentary, and textual representations-from the twelfth century onward. The temporal trajectory of this development, especially plotted against the spatial, suggests compellingly that it was in reaction to the transformative encounter with the polities of Central Asia-with Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Khaljis (and perhaps even earlier, with the Arabs, as the Gwalior prasasti cited above suggests)-and the resultant new social and political order instituted by the establishment of the Sultanate that the Ramayana lived anew in royal discourse.

8. The Ramayana narrative seems to me to offer special imaginative “resources,” which though perhaps shared to a degree by other mythopolitical narratives, are present in distilled form in this particular story. They are constitutive of it and remain stable, as semiotic slots, however differently interpretive communities will specify their contents. I think these can be categorized under the two broad headings of divinization and demonization. The first points to the fact that, although the political as in so many other Indian texts is at the heart of the narrative, this text offers for the first time a special assessment, or resolution, of the paradox that the political comprises in premodern India. It does this by way of what I think is a new mediation of the religious, that is, the divine or numinous, and the political, by which I mean the nature of life in the human polity. The second heading, the demonization of the Other-a shopworn yet still indispensable phrase-relates to those who stand outside this theologically sanctioned polity. Not only are these two thematics the defining thematics of Valmlki’s epic, they are two of the most powerful conceptions of the social-political imagination.

9. In the face of substantial political uncertainty, then, and consonant with other kinds of cultural representations,the Ramayana was repeatedly instrumentalized by the ruling Indian elites of the middle period to provide a theology of politics and a symbology of otherness.

10. If the Ramayana has served for 1,000 years as a code in which proto-communalist relations could be activated and theocratic legitimation could be rendered-if it constitutes an imaginary within which the public sphere is not sundered from the religious, and at the same time cannot be conceptualized without a concomitant demonization of some other-it makes sense that it would be through this mytheme par excellence that reactionary politics in India today would find expression in the interests of a theocratization of the state and the creation of an internal enemy as necessary antithesis.

11. For one thing, the deity Rama in his abstract (nirguna) form had intervened, occupying in different degrees and for some four centuries starting with Kabir, a focal point of almost supracommunal religious devotion. This is a phenomenon difficult to correlate with a communalist coding of the personalized form (saguna) of Ramacandra, although I don’t think impossibly so (it is not clear that “Ram” ever means Ramacandra for Kabir; Vaudeville 1974:115). A rather stronger reason for caution is that the Ramayana-a work whose fluidity and linguistic variability I alluded to at the beginning of this essay but have a priori bracketed- is, to be sure, more than a single text. For some scholars it rather approximates a literary genre, library, or language, added to, reworked, rewritten in every region and every community, and in every century for perhaps the last twenty; the tradition of the Ramayana, it is often argued, has been a tradition of contestation rather than a tradition of canonicity, starting at least with the Jain Palmacaria in the fourth or fifth century. For this reason, and because of even the Sanskrit text’s instability (often exaggerated, though), some hold that there may no longer exist any such thing as the Ramayana, if ever there did.

12. The very conceptualization of the JNU scholars-of “the political abuse of history”-ignores the fact thatobjectivist history has been one of the principal knowledge-forms in which post-Enlightenment politics has expressed itself. The very subject-matter of history is the state, as Hegel put it, which “involves the production of such history in the very progress of its own being.” One can sooner argue that, far from enabling emancipation, historical writing itself-the positivist-objectivist historiography of Western science, what Hegel might call “historical History”- bears a substantial measure of responsibility for the reactionary politics and the romantic historicism driving them for the past century, in Europe as well as Asia. Ayodhya would hardly have assumed the dimensions of the present problem were it not for scientized historicality itself (objectified in such texts as the archaeological reports and colonial gazetteers constantly cited by the parties to the dispute) and the pursuit of origins it delusively inspires. When we consider parallel if more apocalyptic cases such as the role of historicist nostalgia in postcolonial Cambodian politics-the link between modern French historiography of precolonial Cambodia and the political program of the Khmer Rouge it is difficult not to wonder how a mode of inquiry partly responsible for the problem can be expected to solve it.

FROM LITERARY HISTORY, REGION, AND NATION IN SOUTH ASIA: INTRODUCTORY NOTE

1. We are still unclear, for example, about the conditions under which Sanskrit emerged as one such literary language. Scholars have long called attention to the fact that the first kavyas derive from self-conscious movements such as Sanskritized Buddhism at the beginning of the common era, but no one has offered a good argument for why this might be so, nor explored the character of the social communities-often, it appears, newly migrating into the subcontinent-that may have contributed to these developments. Another way to express this specific historical problem is not that Sanskrit became literary, but that “literature” as such literature as dominant Indian traditions have defined it, came into being at the moment in question. Evidently, what the self-conscious Indian traditions have identified as “literary” must itself be a subject of critical historical analysis as well. We know little, too, about the use of “counter languages” for making literature among Jains, Buddhists, and others, which may actually antedate and stimulate the emergence of literary Sanskrit. What these developments represent is an early instance of an enduring and constitutive issue in South Asian cultural history, that of language-choice in a multilingual space.

2. It has slowly dawned on many of us working in Europe and the United States that people in South Asia happen to have interests in the interpretations of the texts that have been produced, and continue to circulate, in their worlds. The study of the South Asian past plays as powerful a role in the construction of present-day post-colonial South Asian worlds-whether nationalist, indigenist, reactionary, internationalist, or other constructions-as it did in the construction of the colonial world, only the locus of dominant agency has changed. And whether one does or does not care about the relationship between scholarship on texts and the people who consider those texts to be theirs, no one can any longer ignore the fact that such a relationship exists.

4:08 PM - 2 Mar 2016 RVAIDYA‏@rvaidya2000

What an assertion by Rohan Murty-says none in India who can translate Sanskirt works-New Macualay-if u hve money u can talk anything Sad RT

India's coolie economy

The government must undo the damage inflicted by the flawed policies of globalisation, and India should be converted into a country where entrepreneurs can thrive and the entire population can participate in the economy, says Arvind Kumar.

Image: A scene from Amitabh Bachchan's iconic film, Coolie.  The policies related to globalisation are not very different from the British laws that invited the ire of Indian freedom-fighters and the term 'coolie' accurately describes those who work today for Western entities, says the author.

Since 1991, India's economic policies have focused on creating opportunities for foreign investors and helping foreign firms find cheap labour in the country. The effect of these policies is not a matter of pride for India, as it has been reduced into a producer of coolies for the Anglophone world in various sectors including journalism, politics, the so-called non-profit sector, and computer software.

Yet, we find a number of people applauding India for precisely this aspect of economic change. Such people also applaud China's so-called success in the manufacturing sector but that success is merely a transformation of China into a massive sweatshop for the Western world while its own people are mired in poverty. Even N R Narayana Murthy, one of the founders of Infosys, recently lamented that while India had allowed the software sector to thrive, it lagged in the hardware sector and China had become the “factory of the world".

When the British ruled India, a common complaint of the freedom-fighters was that Indian resources and labour were used for improving Britain while making India impoverished. Economic opportunities were available only to a small segment of the population that possessed a knowledge of English. Even these opportunities were in the form of jobs to aid the British in some manner and those who worked for the British imperial masters were called coolies. The policies related to globalisation are not very different from the British laws that invited the ire of Indian freedom-fighters and the term 'coolie' accurately describes those who work today for Western entities.

That the situation today in India is no different from the 19th century and allows only English-speaking people to thrive should surprise nobody. In his speech in Parliament in July 1991, then finance minister Dr Manmohan Singh invited the forces of globalisation into India and the theme of 'international' and 'foreign' players gaining access to India dominated his speech. 

India's policies were soon aligned with the agenda of mercantilist institutions of the West such as the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund. These policies were focused towards increasing the shipment of goods to the West, providing labour to Western countries, granting monopolies to Western corporations, and increasing their profits. There were even cases of the government guaranteeing the profits of foreign firms. Every policy that was put in place was geared towards bettering the lives of people in the West using Indian labour and resources.

As a result, a large section of the Indian population aspires to become some type of coolie as a career choice. Infosys, the firm Narayana Murthy founded, is a symptom of this problem in the Indian economy. It is not a centre for innovation but just a successful herding of coolies. Infosys is similar to the businesses operated by employment agents who send labourers to Dubai and other places in Western Asian countries. The main difference between the brokers who find jobs for poor people in Dubai and the founder of Infosys is that most brokers were not fortunate enough to get educated at an Indian Institute of Technology. They do what they can for a livelihood while also finding jobs for poor labourers.

While Infosys can be classified as a business operation, setting up such a business cannot really be considered entrepreneurship as a significant part of the revenues of such businesses is based on merely managing the pay checks of the labour force in various countries along with the logistics and paperwork related to their visa applications. Such businesses are heavily dependent on government regulations preventing the free flow of labour across borders.

Entrepreneurship involves under-consumption and risk-taking on the part of the entrepreneur. When the founder of Infosys embarked on this business of supplying cheap labour to other countries, he was wealthy by Indian standards by virtue of being an NRI and was also armed with a degree from an IIT which was highly subsidised. His business model was also free of risks typically associated with new ventures.

For its part, by setting apart taxpayer money for venture capital as with the India Aspiration Fund, the government too has demonstrated that it does not understand entrepreneurship. Payment of such money is a combination of welfare for educated people and bureaucrats picking winners in the marketplace. Additionally, there is no risk on the part of the businesses that receive capital from the government as they use other people's money. This is a classic case of privatised profits and socialised losses. The government needs to stop handing out money and must instead make changes to the system that will allow ordinary Indians to thrive without depending on handouts.

Narayana Murthy has also called for greater autonomy for Indian Institutes of Management. These calls must be ignored as the institutions built using the money of Indian citizens should not be gifted away to wealthy people. Greater autonomy for IIMs would translate into the de facto ownership of the IIMs resting with the Board of Governors even as they are funded using taxpayers’ money.

Instead, the management of institutes of higher education must be made more inclusive by involving people who represent the ethos of India. For example, IIM Bangalore now has the founder of Biocon among its Board of Governors. Like Infosys, Biocon too was not the result of entrepreneurship based on innovation and risk-taking but was set up as an Indian subsidiary of an Irish brewery which was forced by laws of the time to work with an Indian partner. This firm eventually produced generic drugs and took advantage of the economic climate during which many foreign firms offshored their work to the Indian labour force. IIM Bangalore should bring on board groups like the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha or the Swadeshi Jagran Manch which have a sound understanding of topics like economics as well as the needs of Indians.

Another important step that must be taken is the reorientation of the education system so that graduates are equipped to contribute to the development of India. This must not be achieved through coercion but by making opportunities available in lucrative fields to all people of India. This means tertiary education in the most prestigious institutes must be available in Indian languages. Students must be able to pursue education in Indian languages at the best universities in the country and become doctors, engineers, chartered accountants, bank officers and bureaucrats. Various branches of the government must conduct their business in Indian languages.

The government must also replace its economic advisers as they represent Western interests and advocate economic theories developed in the West. Their advocacy is a manifestation of the coolie mindset and perpetuates the system developed by the British to transfer the wealth of India to the West. The theories peddled today by those calling themselves experts on trade were created to help the East India Company increase its profits. Economic theories developed in the West have failed in every country that has tried them and the theories have not been successful even on their home turfs in Europe and the US.

Globalisation has also created another tribe of coolies who harbour ill intentions towards India. While doctors, engineers, management consultants and entrepreneurs who serve the West are coolies who typically earn money for an honest day's work, this cannot be said about the coolies of the academia, media and the so-called “non-profit” sector. Many of these Gunga Dins* are paid by the so-called human rights organisations or get grants and prizes from Western institutions to demonise Indians while articulating the political positions of their Western masters whom they place on a pedestal.

It is important to correct the course and undo the damage inflicted by the flawed policies of globalisation. India should be converted into a country where entrepreneurs can thrive and the entire population can participate in the economy. This is not a difficult task but it is important to act before it is too late.

*A poem (1892) by Rudyard Kipling. It is written in the language of an ordinary British soldier praising a native who carries water for the British Army in India and dies taking water to a wounded soldier during a battle. Many people know the last line of the poem: You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

Arvind Kumar is an expert on technology and economic issues and can be reached at arvind@classical-liberal.net

Indians of yesterday with which experts on coolie economy are familiar were treated no different , actually much worse then Syrian refugees to day in European states. Ship carrying starving Sikhs from Punjab , Kamagatamaru was not permitted to Canada Shores for the afflicted passengers to disembark. As a result many have perished, To day a Sikh of same origin is Defense Minister of Canada. India was only able to send 'satellites' of the size of tennis ball into space on 'Thumba' rockets yesterday. Now India is first to send orbiting satellite around Mars at very first attempt.  Coolies do not do such things, they wait for permission from masters, like our eminences who look towards crumbs falling from the tables of their masters rehashing the hackneyed theses like Aryan Invasion to win their PhDs which some say stands for 'Piled higher, Deeper'. 

That India is surely even if it is happening  rather slowly  is gone when imperialists left to London leaving behind an Islamist state to keep India down. Fortunately India is able to overcome this burden as well, so much so current British Prime Minster, David Cameron wants the natives of British Isles to emulate Hindus and learn Ramayana while our coolies in time warp do not want to learn Sanskrit. 

A confident India only can make Make in India a successful campaign. This can be seen when India is expected to overtake China in growth rate.Yet still keep real democracy intact rather than ersatz people's democracy. 

All these are no mean achievements for a nation that was traumatized, wounded , got written off as basket case fit only to receive foreign aid. Now same country is spoken about as potential superpower. 

 

India online

"The battle for India’s e-commerce market is about much more than retailing

Mar 5th 2016  | From the print edition

EVERY second three more Indians experience the internet for the first time. By 2030 more than 1 billion of them will be online. In June last year one in four mobiles used in India was a smartphone, up from one in five just six months earlier. Add in two more facts—India boasts the world’s fastest-growing large economy, and the planet’s biggest population of millennials—and you can see why the likes of Facebook, Uber and Google are falling over themselves to establish footholds there...."

Removal of Sheldon Pollock as mentor and Chief Editor of Murty Classical Library

Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

• There must be a fair representation of the lineages and traditional groups that teach and practice the traditions described in the texts being translated. This would ensure that the sentiments and understanding of the millions of Indians who practice these traditions are not violated.
• The project must be part of the “Make in India” ethos and not outsourced wholesale to American Ivy Leagues. Just as your visionary role in Infosys showed the world that Indians can be the top producers of IT, so also we urge you to champion the development of Swadeshi Indology. This would entail developing an entire ecosystem of India-based research, translations, journals and conferences. These would be run by leading Indian academicians as well as traditional practitioners.
• There must be a written set of standards and policies for the entire project, pertaining to the translation methodologies, historical assumptions and philosophical interpretations that would be used consistently in all volumes.

• How will certain Sanskrit words that are non-translatable be treated?
• What will be the posture adopted towards the “Foreign Aryan Theory” and other such controversial theories including chronologies?
• What will be assumed concerning the links between ancient texts and present-day social and political problems?
• Will the theoretical methods developed in Europe in the context of the history of ancient Europe, be used to interpret Indian texts, or will there first be open discussions with Indians on the use of Indian systems of interpretations?

1. Prof. K. Ramasubramanian, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay.
2. Prof. Ramesh C. Bhardwaj , Professor and Head, Department of Sanskrit, Delhi University
3. Dr. Kapil Kapoor , Former Pro Vice Chancellor, JNU, New Delhi.
4. Dr. Girish Nath Jha, Professor of Computational Linguistics and Chairperson, Special Center for Sanskrit Studies, JNU, New Delhi. Professor & Concurrent Faculty, Center for Linguistics, School of Language Literature & Culture Studies, JNU, New Delhi.
5. Prof. V. Kutumba Sastry, President, International Association of Sanskrit Studies, Former Vice Chancellor, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi
6. Dr. C. Upender Rao, Professor and Chairperson, Special centre for Sanskrit Studies, JNU, New Delhi.
7. Prof. Madhu Kishwar, Senior Fellow, CSDS, New Delhi
8. Prof. R. Vaidyanathan, IIM Bangalore, Finance & Control UTI Chair Professor
9. Shri N. Gopalaswami, Former Chief Election Commisioner of India, Head of the HRD ministry’s committee on Sanskrit Promotion, Chairman, Kalakshetra, Chennai
10. Prof. Ramesh Kumar Pandey, Vice Chancellor, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, New Delhi.
11. Swami Madhavpriyadas, Shree Swaminarayan Gurukul Vishwavidya Pratishthanan, Ahmedabad
12. Dr. K. S. Kannan, Professor, Jain University, Bangalore.
13. Sri Ramanuja Devanathan , Former Vice Chancellor, Sri Jagadguru Ramananda  Rajasthan Sanskrit University, Jaipur
14. Prof. Shrinivasa Varakhedi, Professor and Dean, Karnataka Sanskrit Univerity
15. Prof. K. E. Devanathan, Vice Chancellor, S. V. Vedic University, Tirupati
16. Dr. Pappu Venugopala Rao, Secretary, Madras Music Academy, Chennai.
17. Dr. Sampadananda Mishra, Director, Sri Aurobindo Foundation for Indian Culture, Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry.
18. Smt. Meera H. R., Research Scholar, NIAS, Bangalore.
19. Prof. Shashi Tiwari, General Secretary, Wider Assiciation for Vedic Studies (WAVES).
20. Dr. Bal Ram Singh, Professor and President, Institute of Advanced Sciences, Dartmouth, MA., Ex-Professor, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
21. Shri Mitesh Katira, Sanskrit Bharati, Mumbai
22. Dr. Baldevanand Sagar, Ex. Sanskrit-news-broadcaster,AIR-DD. New Delhi, General Secretary, Bharatiya Sanskrit Journalists Association.
23. Prof. K. S. Sateesha, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, New Delhi.
24. Dr. Sudarshan, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, New Delhi.
25. Dr. P Ramanujam, CDAC, Bangalore
26. Dr. K. Mahesh, Post Doctoral Fellow, IIT Bombay
27. Dr. K. Venkatesha Moorthy, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi
28. Dr. Ratnamohan Jha, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi
29. Prof. T.P.R Nambudiri, Principal, Madras Sanskrit College
30. Prof. Viroopaksha Jaddipal, Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tirupathi
31. Prof. Rajaram Shukla, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
32. Prof. Deviprasad Tripathi, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, New Delhi.
33. Prof. Hareram Tripathi, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, New Delhi.
34. Prof. K.P. Paroha, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, New Delhi.
35. Prof. MA Lakshmithathachar, Chairman, Centre for literary Research, Indian Institute  of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine (IIAIM), Dean, Ramanuja Vishwa Vidyapeetam, Melkote, Karnataka
36. Prof. MA Alwar, Karnatak Samskrit University, Mysore
37. Dr. Vinaya Chandra, Research Fellow, Development Foundation, Bangalore
38. Dr. Anuradha Chaudhury, Research Fellow, Development Foundation, Bangalore
39. Dr. Arathi V, Director, Vibhu Academy, Bangalore
40. Dr. Ramachandra G Bhat, Vice Chancellor, SVYASA University
41. Dr. Tilak M Rao, Assistant Director, Veda Vijnana Shodha Samsthanam
42. Dr. Mahabaleshwara S Bhat, Principal, Veda Vigyana Gurukulam, Bangalore
43. Prof. Pramod, Amrita University, Coimbatore
44. Dr Kameshwari, Director, Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, Chennai
45. Dr KS Balasubramanian, Deputy Director, Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, Chennai
46. Dr TV Vasudeva, Deputy Director, Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, Chennai
47. Dr Sita Sundar Ram, Research Fellow, Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, Chennai
48. Prof Parthasarathy, Hon Professor, Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, Chennai
49. Dr. Sudarshan Chiplunkar, Lecturer, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Mumbai
50. Dr. Gayatri Muralikrishna, Asst. Professor, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Delhi
51. Dr. Seetharama, Asst. Professor, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Mumbai
52. Dr. Sridhara Bhat, Professor, HoD, SDM College Ujire, (Mangaluru University), Karnataka.
53. Dr. V.Yamuna Devi, Research Assistant, K.S.R.Institute
54. Dr. V.Premalatha, Research scholar, K.S.R.Institute
55. Dr. Binod Singh Ajatshatru, Associate Professor of Indian Studies, Peking University (Ex), Director, The BRICS Institute, New Delhi
56. Dr. J.S.R. Prasad, Professor&Head, Dept. of Sanskrit Studies, University of Hyderabad
57. Dr. Ram Nath Jha, Associate Professor, Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies,  JNU, New Delhi
58. Shri Mahamahopadhyaya Krishnamurthi Sastri, Retd. Principal, Madras Sanskrit College
59. Shri GSR Krishnamurthy, Registrar, S V Vedic University, Tirupati
60. Dr. Rajnish Mishra, Associate Professor, Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies, JNU, New Delhi
61. Prof. V. N. Jha, Former Director, Center for Advanced Study in Sanskrit, Universit of Pune
62. Shri Arjunkumar K. Samal, Principal, Darshanam Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya, Shree Swaminarayan Gurukul Vishwavidya Pratishthanan, Ahmedabad
63. Shri Basu Ghosh Das, President, ISKCON, Vadodara, Vice chairman, ISKCON India Governing Bureau
64. Shri Lila Purushottam Das, Principal, Bhaktivedanta Gurukula, Vrindavan, Professor, Department of Electrical Enginneering, IIT Kanpur
65. Prof. Bharat Gupt, Former Associate Professor, College of Vocational Studies, Delhi University.
66. Prof. Rudrapatna Shyamasundar, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay.
67. Prof. Kannan Moudgalya, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay.
68. Prof. Sivakumar, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay.
69. Prof. Shripad Garge, Department of Mathematics, IIT Bombay
70. Prof. Arunkumar Sridharan, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay
71. Prof. Varadraj Bapat, School of Management, IIT Bombay
72. Prof. Shireesh Kedare, Department of Energy Sciences, IIT Bombay
73. Prof. Saketh Nath, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay.
74. Dr. Kuntimaddi Sadananda, Material Scientist, Former Head of Deformation and Fraction section of the US Naval Research Lab, Acharya of Chinmaya Mission, Washington Regional Center.
75. Prof. Rakesh Mathpal, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Kanpur.
76. Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay.
77. Prof Karthik Raman, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras
78. Prof. Neeraj Kumbhakarna, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay
79. Prof. Ashish Pandey, School of Management, IIT Bombay.
80. Dr. T. S. Mohan, Director, Pragyan Datalabs, Bangalore
81. Prof. Devendra Jalihal, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras
82. Prof. Karmalkar, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras
83. Prof. Ashwin Gumaste, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay
84. Dr. Deepika Kothari, Founder Vishuddhi Films
85. Dr. Ranjan Ghosh, Lecturer, Department of Economics, SLU Uppsala, Sweden
86. Prof. Balaji Jayaraman, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Oklahoma State University
87. Prof. M. S. Sriram, Dept of Theoretical Physics, Univ. of Madras
88. Prof. Anil Kumar Gaurishetty, Dept of Physics, IIT Roorkee
89. Prof. Sanjay Chitnis, CMR Institute of Technology, Bangalore
90. Prof. K Gopinath, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
91. Prof. Arun Agrahara, Rajeev Institute of Technology, Hassan
92. Prof. B Mahadevan, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
93. Prof. TV Prabhakar, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
94. Dr. Samir Kagalkar, Director, eMBArkers, Fellow of IIM Bangalore
95. Prof. S. Krishnan, Dept. of Mathematics, IIT Bombay
96. Prof. N. Narayanan, Dept. of Mathematics, IIT Madras
97. Prof. Murali Krishna, Dept. of Computer Science & Automation, IISc, Bangalore
98. Prof. Amartya Kumar Dutta, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta
99. Prof. M.D. Srinivas, Chairman, Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai
100. Dr. Paresh Joshi, Academic Program coordinator, Junior Science Olympiad, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education and also Vice-President (ASIA) of International Junior Science Olympiad.
101. Dr. Anand Bulusu, Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering, IIT Roorkee
102. Dr. Ram Manohar Singh, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee
103. Prof. Makarand Paranjpe, Dept of English, JNU, New Delhi
104. Prof. S. M. Deshpande, Senior Research Fellow, JNCASR, Bangalore, Former Professor, Department Aerospace Engineering, IISc Bangalore
105. Prof. Srikanth Vedantam, Department of Engineering Design, IIT Madras
106. Prof. Sunil Kumar, Director, Multimedia & Wireless Networks Research Group, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, San Diego State University, CA, USA
107. Prof. Sachin Shinde, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kanpur
108. Prof. Umesh Sharma, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia
109. Prof. Mohan Yellishetty, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia
110. Prof. Kunal Mukherjee, Department of Methamatics, IIT Madras
111. Prof. Himanshu Pota, School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales, Australia
112. Dr. Raghbendra Jha, Professor and Head, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University
113. Prof. Krithivasan Ramamritham, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Head CUSE, IIT Bombay
114. Prof. Prasanna Gandhi, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay
115. Dr. Nagesh Bhandari, President, Indus University, Ahmedabad
116. Dr. Rakesh Bhandari, Director, Indus Institute of Special Studies, Indus University, Ahmedabad
117. Shri. Shankar Sharan, Associate Professor, NCERT
118. Prof. Shekhar Babu, Amrita School of Business, Amrita University, Bangalore
119. Prof. Sudharshan, Amrita University, Bangalore
120. Dr. Bharati Karnik, Professor, Dept. of English, M.L.B. Govt. College of Excellence, Gwalior
121. Dr. Amresh Shrivastava, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Western University, Canada
122. Dr. S. B. Sharma, Executive President, Indus University, Ahmedabad, Former Deputy Director, Antenna Systems Area, ISRO
123. Shri G. Anil Kumar, Writer, Journalist, Editor-in-Chief of Karmaveera
124. Mohan Yellishetty, Senior Lecturer (Mining & Resource Engineering), Monash University
125. Umesh Sharma, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Monash University
126. Harpreet Kandra, Faculty of Science and Technology, Federation University and School of Engineering and Information Technology, Monash University
127. Jagbir Singh, Former Professor and Head, Department of Punjabi, University of Delhi. Life Fellow, Punjabi University, Patiala
128. Prof. Amarjiva Lochan, Associate Professor, Department of History Shivaji College, University of Delhi
129. Prof. Ritendra Sharma, Centre for Indic Studies, Indus University, Ahmedabad
130. Prof. Harshit Jain, Centre for Indic Studies, Indus University, Ahmedabad
131. Prof. SG Rakesh, Amrita University, Bangalore
132. Shri CSR Prabhu, Former Director General of NIC,Govt of India

Supporters

Of Asuras and Alternate Readings

Feb 28, 2016 Saiswaroopa Iyer

A big addict to old Telugu puranic films, I remember this film Bhookailas vividly. It had the story of Ravana Brahma's attempts to acquire the Atmalingam of Lord Shiva. In the popular lore, Ravana is the antagonist. But this movie had him as the protagonist. I can't help sharing one of my favorite songs from the film - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7voWulyF2mc

The scholar that he is, Ravana does deserve his share of tales and movies as a protagonist (especially when it is Sr NTR donning the role with Sri Ghantasala singing for him, the combination is deadly! :-)). Coming back to the point of the reverential attitude towards the titans in our Puranic lore.

Asuras fundamentally are not 'hated' in the Hindu Puranic lore like the 'evil' is despised in the Abrahamic lore. Rather, they stand as examples for the pinnacle of human achievement when it comes to Tapasya. They also exemplify scholarship.  They are ambitious just like many of the Kings revered in the lore (Like Bharata, Sagara and others too have undertaken conquests). They upheld the knowledge of Vedas. The conversation between Hiranyakashipu and Prahlada in Andhra MahaBhagavatam is a proof.

చదువనివాఁ డజ్ఞుం డగు

జదివిన సదసద్వివేక చతురత గలుగుం

జదువఁగ వలయును జనులకుఁ

జదివించెద నార్యులొద్ధఁ జదువుము తండ్రీ!

The one who does not pursue knowledge remains ignorant. The one who studies can acquire the ability and discretion to identify the 'sat' and 'asat'.  To the one born as a human being, the pursuit of knowledge is a must. This is why I shall send you to study under the tutelage of Aryas (the noble scholars). Study well, my son.

Forget the demonic side of Hiranyakashipu, How many among today's fathers tell their children that the aim of education is to acquire the discretion to separate truth and untruth?

After the schooling, here is what Hiranyakashipu asks Prahlada

ఉత్సాహ ప్రభుమంత్రశక్తి యుతమే యుద్యోగ? మారూఢ సం

విత్సంపన్నుఁడ వైతివే? చదివితే వేదంబులున్ శాస్త్రముల్?

వత్సా రమ్మని చేరఁ జీరి కొడుకున్ వాత్సల్య సంపూర్ణుఁ డై

యుత్సంగాగ్రముఁ జేర్చి దానవవిభుం డుత్కంఠ దీపింపగన్

Filled with eagerness and joy about his son's education, Hiranyakashipu welcomed Prahlada. Seated the boy on his lap, he asked, "Did your pursuit of Vidya encompass the Kshatra (warriorly) skills and endow you with the requisite capability? Did you also pursue the path of knowledge? Did you complete the study of Vedas and Shastras?"

In response, Prahlada cites his devotion to Vishnu and we all know the story after that. But one of Prahlada's noteworthy responses is about what his studies encompassed.

చదివించిరి నను గురువులు

చదివితి ధర్మార్థ ముఖ్య శాస్త్రంబులు నేఁ

జదివినవి గలవు పెక్కులు

చదువులలో మర్మ మెల్లఁ జదివితిఁ దండ్రీ!

As the teachers taught me, Father, I studied the Shastras like Dharma and Artha and much much more. I studied the various books and also realized the essence of all that I studied.

Those of us looking down upon Asuras will have a lot to learn from the conversation about their passionate pursuit of Vedic knowledge and patronage of scholars who were well versed in these studies. This also counters the half-baked claims about Asuras being a race different from Aryas and that they denounced the Vedic system. Ravana's compositions perhaps are another example.

But barring the exceptions like Prahlada, the Asuras drifted. Many of them who acquired powers of invincibility, lacked the discretion of using those powers. Some of them gave into temptations that made them lose discretion. Most of them asked for their destruction by violently stopping the offering of the havis by the Rishis to Suras (or Adityas headed by Indra). In a way, they interfered with the religious freedom of the Rishis, sometimes resorting to violence and even rape. (Wasn't the whole scholarship and the power of Tapasya coming to a zilch here?).

This formidable combination of merit of Tapasya and antagonizing attitude often united the world against the Asuras and required the Supreme forces to manifest in order to eliminate them. To their credit, each of the Asuras has been instrumental in adding a deity to our Hindu pantheon. Tarakasura forced the reunion of Shiva with Shakti resulting in the birth of Kumara. Ravana forced Vishnu to manifest as an ordinary human being and the devas as Vanaras. Hiranyakashipu's merit went ahead making Vishnu alter the manifestation to become Nara-Hari. Each of them disrupted the universal balance causing the universal forces to synthesize a counterbalancing force. The scholar Bhagavandas in his work, Krishna, A study in the theory of Avatars calls the disrupting forces as Prati-Narayanas who cause the manifestation of Narayana.

Those sympathizing with Asuras would be doing a great disservice, not to others but to themselves by ignoring this repeated lesson from the history. Revere their knowledge and celebrate their contribution like the Shiva tandava stotra of Ravana is sung today in almost all the Shiva temples and in popular media. Also, revere the valuable lessons that they left us (they did so at a high cost and we better respect that).

The patrons of 'alternate readings' better keep that in mind before propagating baseless theories about Rama being an invader and Devi Durga being a prostitute. Apart from being useless, such ill-intentioned theories only serve to cause animosity and don't really add value to any knowledge system. There is no such thing as blasphemy in the Hindu eco system. Only point to note is that this universe can very well do this job of repeating the lesson with ease when the spirit of harmonious coexistence is threatened. As someone quoted, "Nothing in this world can do the job of repeating itself as history does."

उत्तिष्ठत जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान्निबोधत। क्षुरस्य धारा निशिता दुरत्यया दुर्गं पथस्तत्कवयो वदन्ति ॥ - कठोपनिषत् १।३।१४

Pic Credit: By Jonoikobangali (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

GK Pillai dares P Chidambaram: ‘Deny you dictated Ishrat draft’

North Korea threatens US and S Korea with nuclear strikes

Image copyrightReuters

North Korea has threatened "indiscriminate" nuclear strikes on the US and South Korea as the two begin their largest ever military drills.

The exercises, Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, are an annual event and always generate tension.

The order for a "pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice" was made in a statement put out by Pyongyang.

Such rhetoric is not uncommon, and experts doubt the North's ability to put nuclear warheads on its missiles.

North Korea says it sees the annual US-South Korean war games as a rehearsal for invasion. Last year, it threatened to turn Washington into a "sea of fire".

"We will launch an all-out offensive to decisively counter the US and its followers' hysteric[al} nuclear war moves," a newsreader on the state-run North Korean KRT news channel said of the latest exercises.

Can South Korea defend itself?

Dealing with the North: Carrots or sticks?

How advanced is North Korea's nuclear programme?

Approximately 17,000 US forces are participating in the exercises, alongside around 300,000 South Korean troops - both significant increases on 2015's numbers.

Despite starting on the same day, Key Resolve is more computer simulation-driven and ends on 18 March, while Foal Eagle is more focussed on field exercises and runs until 30 April.

Image copyrightReuters

Image copyrightEPA

Image copyrightGetty Images

The South's defence ministry has warned Pyongyang against any "rash act that brings destruction upon itself".

"If North Korea ignores our warning and makes provocations, our military will firmly and mercilessly respond to it," said spokesman Moon Sang-gyun.

Japan's foreign minister also demanded that North Korea show restraint.

"North Korea's nuclear, and nuclear missile development is absolutely unacceptable. We will coordinate with the international community to demand that North Korea show restraint, and abide by the various resolutions including that of the six party talks," said Fumio Kishida.

Though unconfirmed, South Korea's Yonhap news agency, citing military sources, has reported that the exercises will include training for precision attacks on North Korean leadership and its nuclear and missile facilities.

These latest exercises come just days after the UN passed new sanctions against North Korea following its recent nuclear test and rocket launch.

On Saturday, the Philippines impounded a North Korean cargo vessel under the toughened measures. A presidential spokesman said the crew would be deported and the ship subject to a UN-mandated inspection.

Image copyrightEPA

The North responded to the sanctions by saying it was readying nuclear weapons for "pre-emptive" use, and by firing short-range missiles into the sea.

Seoul is expected to announce more sanctions of its own on Tuesday, which is likely to draw another angry response from Pyongyang.

The US and South Korea on Friday also began formal talks on the deployment of a US missile defence system to the peninsula, a move strongly opposed by North Korea, Russia and China.

Beijing says the Thaad anti-missile system compromises its security and would undermine its nuclear deterrent.

---

What is the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (Thaad)?

• Shoots down short and medium-range ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of their flight
• Uses hit-to-kill technology - where kinetic energy destroys the incoming warhead
• Has a range of 200km and can reach an altitude of 150km
• US has previously deployed it in Guam and Hawaii as a measure against potential attacks from North Korea

1. The enemy launches a missile

2. The Thaad radar system detects the launch, which is relayed to command and control

3. Thaad command and control instructs the launch of an interceptor missile

4. The interceptor missile is fired at the enemy projectile

5. The enemy projectile is destroyed in the terminal phase of flight