Indology forums, groups and email lists

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Several Indology forums, groups and email lists have been criticized for anti-Indian and anti-Hindu bias, quite atypical when compared to similar research forums for other religions or cultures like Islam or Christianity. Critics include Rajiv Malhotra, Yvette Rosser, Vishal Agarwal, Koenraad Elst, etc.

Examples of McCarthyism and censorship[edit]

  • There is big money behind the Hindutva moves on California, and we are currently tracking down the money trail.
  • The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) -- an outwardly mild appearing group that claims to be a "Human Rights" organization that gives a "voice" to 2,000,000 Hindu-Americans.
  • McCarthyist rant against Hindu and other websites:
  • However, just as you, I am in close contact with our Estonian colleagues. We will do something about the skewed aspects of this paper that I have criticized on this list (their falling prey to some Hindutva imaginations of early Indian history). Keep looking!
  • Rant againtst the Dalai Lama and Tibet, making (expectedly) the usual false claims and using as sources Marxist Michael Parenti, the (in)famous apologist for Stalin and Slobodan Milosevic and the Marxist pseudohistorian Trimondi.
  • Rant against a scholar, accusing him to be thoroughly and uncritically Indocentric because he doesn't like the conclusions of his studies.
  • Michael Witzel calling scholars Hindutva soldiers because they are ccritical of his pet theories.
  • Witzel comparing Hindus in the California textbook case with Nazis
  • Mccarthisym against Indian scholars whose studies find similarities between IVC and later Hindu traditions.

Examples of Breaking India and other bias[edit]

  • The Hindutva groups behind this attack are well-funded and highly organized, and we need a lot of help to counteract the defamatory remarks currently being spread in print and via the Web about him around the world.... Some of these groups, as noted below, have long-time connections with rightwing groups in India, whose attempts to project Hindutva political-religious ideology into Indian textbooks have been turned back since 2004 (after the rightwing BJP party lost national power) by India's National Council of Educational Research & Training (NCERT). ... The fictional notion presented to the California Board of Education that the highly fragmented Hindu-American community is homogenous has certainly come as a surprise to the Tamil, Dalit, and other Indian minority groups in the United States with whom we have contacts... they - do not, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, speak for all Hindu-Americans.... we have made sure that cutting-edge population geneticists are in attendance at every yearly Harvard Roundtable... Just as in the petitions aimed at Harvard, the Indo-Eurasian_Research list is once again misrepresented in _The Pioneer_ as an "Internet hate group." Opposing attempts to rewrite history for political and religious purposes does not qualify us or any other group for such a label. These rightwing groups have had a terrible effect on research in premodern fields, and correcting the false image they present of history is an unfortunate (and obviously thankless) part of our job...Hopefully, after the California business is over, we can forget these extremist groups for at least a short while. ... The HINDU AMERICAN FOUNDATION. This is the most problematic of the groups, as I've repeatedly point, since their public persona has it that they are a "Human Rights Organization" representing 2 million (!) Hindu Americans....You won't find a visible trace of Hindutva anyplace on their webpage, but when you dig beneath the surface, you'll soon find that the President of HAF, Mihir Meghani, has a long history of links with the rightwing in India.
  • "Dear List, since it is the weekend, a few amusing details about our old friend, NS Rajaram’s, talk at MIT last week (4/10) and his subsequent interview in the local Indian immigrants’ (NRI) newspaper Lokavani “Voice of the People’ — sponsored by a clueless US immigration lawyer. Along with one or two of my students, I went to MIT to have some fun. And fun it was. Some very emotional people (among the c. 40 listeners) objected to our snickering at his “ideas” (see below). Rajaram indeed repeated all the fantasies and unscientific nonsense that he has propagated since he abruptly turned, overnight (why?), from a mathematician at some US colleges and a (very occasional, but hyped) collaborator of NASA-Houston, into a “historian” back in his home town of Bangalore in India."

Connections with white supremacists[edit]

The RISA list[edit]

https://hindutva.github.io/rivals/academia/source-material/ [archive]

https://yvetterosser.wordpress.com/2015/12/28/commentary-on-the-condition-of-hindu-studies-in-us-universities/ [archive]

Further reaading[edit]

  • Malhotra, Academic Hinduphobia
  • Rosser, Articles
  • Elst, The Argumentative Hindu