>https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/04/12/scholars-who-study-hinduism-and-india-face-hostile-climate
>Disputes over alleged mischaracterizations of Hinduism and India by Western scholars are long simmering and boil over from time to time. This happened in 2005-6, when Hindu groups battled with scholars over proposed revisions to descriptions of the religion in California middle school textbooks.
Reading this article and the comment section of this article, I had no idea Hindus were so pissed off at Indology academics. On one hand, some of these Hindu groups seem to have a point that Western scholars of India are overtly negative and have misinterpreted texts. On the other hand, the Hindu groups also seem to be pushing blatant falsehoods such as the idea that there was no Aryan migration to India. So I'm not sure who's in the right here, but I'm leaning towards that the Hindu groups are just butthurt nationalists.
What's /his/'s take on Western scholarship on Indian history? Do these Hindu groups make a good argument?
There's no chance whatsoever this is comparable to Religious right Muslims or Christians raging at people for asserting a secular stance mainly based on what the archaeological and historical sources say rather than the Religious ones?
>>982735
It definitely is, but in the case of Indology it's also tied in with post-colonialism. As in, are Western academics still viewing India from a colonial perspective and are either purposefully or unintentionally degrading India?
>>982719
It's anecdotal evidence but whatever; we had a lecture by Indian ambassador on his country in my university. It was generally okay but man, did he dive into some WE WUZ shit at times.
>We invented geometry and shiet several thousand years BC
>Except Western fucks don't trust oral sources
>Fucking Western fucks
>Vedas are basically ancient textbooks
>They have the speed of light incorporated in them and shiet
>>982745
>Assessing Doniger's body of work, K. M. Shrimali, Professor of Ancient Indian History at the University of Delhi, writes:
>... it (1973) also happened to be the year when her first major work in early India's religious history, viz., Siva, the Erotic Ascetic was published and had instantly become a talking point for being a path-breaking work. I still prescribe it as the most essential reading to my postgraduate students at the University of Delhi, where I have been teaching a compulsory course on 'Evolution of Indian Religions' for the last nearly four decades. It was the beginning of series of extremely fruitful and provocative encounters with the formidable scholarship of Wendy Doniger
I can't see how Wendy Doniger is a conquistadora or otherwise not a liberal like the rest of her colleagues.
I mean her work is defended by Indologists teaching and living in India:
>In February 2014, as part of settlement with plaintiff to a lawsuit brought before an Indian district court, The Hindus was recalled by Penguin India. Indian authors such as Arundhati Roy, Partha Chatterjee, Jeet Thayil, and Namwar Singh inveighed against the publisher's decision. The book has since been published in India by Speaking Tiger Books.
It really is the same shit as Bible-belters being butthurt about books that tell them that the Israelites weren't always monotheistics or shit like that.
>>982773
>I can't see how Wendy Doniger is a conquistadora or otherwise not a liberal like the rest of her colleagues.
Well, apparently they're mainly butthurt over her focusing on sex in the Vedas and have accused her of looking at the Vedas as "a woman desperate for sex".
>>982784
Don't a lot of Religious Historians give sex at least some focus?
I am mostly foreign to the subject, so I may not have any idea.
>>982790
She may have seemed to be arguing that Hinduism promotes modern feminist promiscuity and this may have turned off some Indian Hindus who like harems but don't like women to be legally free.
>>982767
If we Brits are such incorrigible thieves, why didn't we steal their quantumn science and astrophysics and pass it off as our own? I'll never defend imperialism but ffs, you cannot use it to blame every ill in your subsequent history and then throw some more bs in for good measure.
Reminds me of Middle Easterners being mad at Orientalists and white Middle Eastern scholars. Hell, even the word mustashriq (Orientalist) is extremely negative.
>>982719
It's not an uncommon phenomenon. A lot of national identity movements took root across the world at the turn of the 20th century with special attention given to primitive archaeology and romantic historians making all sorts of claims about the ethnogenesis of this or that group.
Academia moved on, the nationalists did not. This exact same kind of dispute also happens with Iranian, Islamic, Slavic, Sinic, and Christian history.
India has one of the worst wewuz complexes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjWd9a8Ck8U
>>983012
These were the best skits
>>983012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tw7LIykvBw
>studying pooinoloogy
you only have yourself to blame
>>982719
>On the other hand, the Hindu groups also seem to be pushing blatant falsehoods such as the idea that there was no Aryan migration to India
India doesn't like aryans now?
>Would you like some ice cream, anon?
>>983121
this will probably happen
>>982719
I hate post-colonial western thought so much
>>982745
>As in, are Western academics still viewing India from a colonial perspective and are either purposefully or unintentionally degrading India?
That seems like a fancy way of asking "Are Westerners interpreting Indian culture through a Western perspective?"
If so, the answer is "Fucking of course they are, how else are they supposed to interpret anything?"
>>983289
This. Indians seem to be basically demanding that Indian history throughout the world should be taught from a Hindu nationalist perspective, which is basically just switching one biased perspective to another.
>>982719
Sati, Thuggee, caste system
Is there any other weird shit they pulled off? Did Hindu's oppress each other and did Muslims oppress Hindu's?
>>983376
Dunno. But their mythology is really crazy. I'm pretty sure that there were giant robots with saw hands in it somewhere
Indian leftist groups are also seen as "colonialist" in many ways also, it didn't help that one of the slogans of the CPI(M-L) during the 70s war "China's Chairman is our Chairman".
when the belief that "you are not your body" is that firmly entrenced, it works like a charm in perpetuating caste abuses.
>>983376
>Sati, Thuggee, caste system
this is something that isnt entirely prevalent throughout india, it just became a standardized thing during the colonial times. Castes were never set in stone to the level it goes on now, it used to be much more fluid.
>>985688
Caste system always existed as endogamic practices and the genetics research reinforces this but was not played as a D&C tool except by various foreigners, a lot of the Muslims were backward caste converts with chips on the shoulder
>>985728
But I was saying that it wasnt prevalent throughout all of india, it did exist in the both orthodox and liberal form throughout the vast history of india, but just that it always changed, the stranglehold of caste is still a recent thing if you take into account the vast number of cultures throughout india.
>a lot of the Muslims were backward caste converts with chips on the shoulder
A lot of that happend in places where the muslims were not as successful in their invasions, primarily the south.
The problem with Hindu nationalists is that they have a huge persecution complex. Not without reason, it must be said, most history departments at India are completely controlled by Marxist intellectuals who push an official historiography of Indian history with bullshit like "Muslims dindu nuffin wrong" and "Brits invented Hinduism to divide the Indian working class". It should be remembered that Muslims held empires over India for centuries, and that Hindus were oppressed during this period, so it's quite ironical when you realize that while the Western left defends the right of oppressed groups to organize and rise against their former white oppressors, when Hindus try the same in India they are accused of being "divisive" and "fascists".
The result of being excluded from academia is that Hindu nationalist scholarship gets all filled with cranky bullshit too like "Out of India theory" and other "wewuz" shit. But I still sympathize more with them than with their political enemies the commies.
>>985879
>I still sympathize more with them than with their political enemies the commies.
Why? India is one of the few places on earth where hardcore Stalinism would be nothing but beneficial
>>985897
>Why? India is one of the few places on earth where hardcore Stalinism would be nothing but beneficial
For reals man? Thats a little extreme, I mean I would agree if you meant the Uttarkhan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with maybe parts of bengal. But all of india? no way.
>>985897
If Nehruvian socialism failed, what makes you think the same shit with larger dosage would work?
>>985927
Im pretty sure Kerala their highest HDI state was pretty much communist at one point
>>985943
They were and are run by actual Marxist-Leninist communists.
>>985943
So does West Bengal, with it's lacklustre HDI.
It should also be noted that the creator of the Human Development Index, Amartya Sen, is an Indian communist and a huge fan of the "Kerala model", so he obviously created an index that benefitted the state. At the same time Kerala tops HDI in India, it also has one of the greatest emigration rates in the country, with people voting with their feet to move to the Persian gulf and to the West.
>>985943
>>985948
>>985960
I was born in Kochi, Kerala its weird but the cities are very different in the show of allegiance, communism is very light in its application because the land seizures and distribution is mostly gone now.
My fathers family lost land, mostly plantations of cashew, bananas and a paddy field i think. They became close to destitute overnight.
My mothers family however was better off, because of my Great grand mothers relatives within the government they got off lightly they still mostly retain the whole village which has now urbanized and most were sold off by the 80's.
>>982719
Indians are total cunts about this; they got Clone High cancelled because Gandi was a character in it.
Maybe this is because I'm religious myself, but I really can't blame them. Hinduism isn't some dead mythological system, it's a living faith that real people stake their whole lives on. Why shouldn't they be extremely defensive of it? I'd expect nothing less. In fact, I'm impressed by their devoutness.
>>985879
>when Hindus try the same in India they are accused of being "divisive" and "fascists"
It doesn't help that the people they tend to 'rise' against are their neighbors who happen to be minorities and not much better off. It'd be like the Irish targeting Irishmen of English descent and saying it's the same thing the Blacks and Hispanics are doing in the U.S.
>>985939
No half measures
>>986002
Dude everyone in my family hates gandhi, that dude fucking ruined our country with his peace politics and appeasement of Muslims.
>>986046
As a secular religious studier I am surprsied more Hindus don't see Ghandi as a destroyer.
To make an analogy that westerns would understand Hinduism is like Judaism, it's part of of an ethnic identity, it's a way of maintaing order in a group. Ghandi is to Hinduism what Jesus is to Judaism, an agent of destruction that seeks to break apart the extended family, deny the cultural identity and blood ties in favor of universialism. If I were Hindu I would favor the caste system.
>>982719
Who would waste their lives studying street shitters? Why bother?
>>985879
This seems to be the case in every country, the lefty jews take over the academia and push their agenda.
This is why things like pol and the altright are given birth on the internet and not on a college campus.
Hindu nationalism itself does seem pretty fucking stupid, how are you gonna be hardcore about not eating cows, lol fucking hajis
>>986346
Fun Fact: Subversive Student at places like JNU have Beef festivals as Western Universities might serve vegan food.
>>986353
Most western universities are probably near a bunch of fast food places so who gives a fuck
>>985879
Same thing is done to French Canadian nationalists. We get labelled as racists and oppressors, despite the fact we were second-rate citizens on our homeland for a 180 years, and are still faced with pressure to behave like good like WASPs who work hard and think of nothing but earning our wages.
>>986046
What shluld he have done differently with the Muslims?
>>986407
>our homeland
lol save your settler tears for PKP
>>986437
Oh, bug off, Canada's like a party where everyone's too polite to leave, but the second someone goes, everybody leaves. Except for Ontario, that desperately doesn't want to be alone. If you have nothing to contribute to the discussion, 'cept for shitting on us some her, kindly fuck off.
I'm sharing my experience with those things to talk about the broader perspective of such events. Namely, academia "whitewashing" (not in the racial sense, I'm tired and lack a more appropriate term) history to suit their needs while pushing others views out of the intellectual arena altogether.
>The result of being excluded from academia is that Hindu nationalist scholarship gets all filled with cranky bullshit too like "Out of India theory" and other "wewuz" shit. But I still sympathize more with them than with their political enemies the commies.
Not only does it exclude the nationalistic point of view and more from academia, but it also turns that very point of view to ridicule, by marginalizing its proponents and letting the more extreme and crazy of them hog the spotlight. Thus, they impose their point of view by pushing their opponents into the mud and feigning to be too righteous to lower themselves to the same level as their opponents.
>>983376
Human sacrifice
>/his/
>history
>>>/pol/
>>982719
Between this thread and the Sikh one a few days back I'm starting to suspect Indian diaspora on this board.
>>986466
Yeah, tell us about how you slaughtered those natives all fair and square.
The nationalism is stupid and settler nationalism is doubly retarded. You aren't being pushed out, you're just too fucking dumb to hold your ground.
>>986558
Well there are quite a few poos on /int/ and /pol/.
>>986558
There are loads of them on /int/ dunno about /pol/ though
The only important question here is is it true revisionism or not?
the nationalistic bullshitry is just ignorant people being ignorant
