dr vijaya: when the fringe benefits

mar 8th, 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vijay




Dear Mr. Malik,

I  read your article 'When the fringe benefits' in Hindustan Times,
March 08,2010.

There are some errors in it,which I would like to point out,if I may.
Before that let me first congratulate the editor of Hindustan Times,
Mr.Vir Singhvi for being one of the few liberals in the Indian media who
openly criticised MF Husain for deserting democratic India for the fundamentalist
monarchy of Qatar. Many liberal commentators took refuge in blaming
the Sangh Parivar for Husain's desertion and trotted out the old tired
arguments for freedom of art and so on. Some like Mr.N.Ram, editor of
The Hindu, repeated popular misconceptions about Khajuraho(failing to
understand that the concept of Maithuna is applicable to mortals not
gods and goddesses,and indeed the figures at Khajuraho are mortals).
For a South Indian, he seems remarkably ill informed about the great
South Indian temples like Brihadisvara near Tanjore (1035 A.D.Tamil Nadu) where
the sculpture of Sarasvati in seated dhyanic pose, is clothed lightly, with
a light girdle at the waist and a light,covering over the upper body.

She is extraordinarily composed and is represented as wisdom, knowledge
and serenity. Quite a contrast to the grotesque nude and suggestive figure
by MF Husain. Sarasvati has never been represented as nude in Hindu art,
whether ancient or modern.

Since I have already written about all this in my articles in Haindava Keralam,
let me move on to your own article in HT.

You begin with  Husain's  betrayal of Indian liberals for crass commercial
advantage in taking up Qatari citizenship (ofcourse, you are an apologist
for the painter and don't see it that way). Dr.Chandan Mitra, editor of
The Pioneer, looks into this aspect of Husain's perfidy(See his article 'Stay
Back Husain, not all is forgiven' The Pioneer). He also mentions in passing
some tax problems. Husain himself in his March 3,2010 interview with Barkha
Dutt, hints at them.

Then you quickly move on to Wendy Doniger's book The Hindus: An Altern
ative History. Here again you are an apologist for this self proclaimed
scholar. Permit me to point out that her own peers have questioned her
competence in Sanskrit translation and her knowledge of Hindu texts.
The famous(infamous!) Michael Witzel of Harvard University, himself a
Sanskritist, has criticised Doniger's translations.He is no friend of Hindutva.
Others, also scholars of Hinduism in their own right, simply avoid her !

May I recommend Aditi Bannerji's article in Outlookindia, which appeared
a couple of months ago ? Unfortunately, I do not have the link, but you
should be able to track it down in Outlook. Here, Dr.Bannerji, takes Doniger's
mistranslations from the Sanskrit and shows their errors. It stand to reason
that Doniger's rather scurrilous references to Hinduism are based on these
erroneous translations. The fact that Donniger might also have an agenda,
is not to be discounted.

The same situation obtains with Jeffrey Kripal's book Kali's Child, where his
open attack on Bhagavan Ramakrishna as a pedophile is based on his lack
of knowledge of Bengali. Fortunately, for those of us who call ourselves
Hindus, this gentleman has been replied to by some of the learned Swamis
of the Ramakrishna Ashram. Here again, there is a step by step refutation
of each of Kripal's mistaken translations out of which he manufactures his
phantasmagoria concerning Bhagavan Ramakrishna.

Let me also quote Mahatma Gandhi's comment on Bhagavan Ramakrishna:

" The story of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's life is a story of religion in
  practice. His life enables us to see God face to face. . . Ramakrishna was
  a living embodiment of godliness. . . "

(Quoted in Romain Rolland's Life of Ramakrishna,1930, p.333).

Mr. Malik, we Hindus are quite happy with Gandhiji's assessment. Dr.Vishal
Agarwal, has written a critique of the Kripal book. Likewise, a chapter by
chapter critique of the Doniger book. Your rather meagre  citations of
one or two examples of technical errors in the Doniger book, gleaned from
comments on the internet, only shows up the haste with which Indian liberal
journalists jump to conclusions.

Which brings me to your adaptation of Sagarika Ghosh's phrase
'internet Hindus'. Frankly, I don't have the faintest idea of who this
woman is, except that she works for CNN IBN. It used to be that people
like her were referred to as the last of the Englishmen(women!). Since
she works for CNN IBN we can probably change that to the more inclusive
last of the Americans or last of the European West or something like that.
Someone has described her as a RNI (Resident Non Indian)!

Be that as it may, people like her are characterised by an irrational dislike
of their own heritage and try to distance themselves from it in many
different ways. One is to sneer at those Hindus who do actively identify
with their Hindu ancestry.

I sincerely hope you don't fall into that category. But your descriptions of inter
net Hindus are wide off the mark. Most of those hindus are brilliant in their own
fields, whether religion, philsophy, or humanities and the liberal arts, or
mathematics or the scientific disciplines. Many are practising medical doctors,
engineers, and so on.To write them off in the contemptuous way you have,
would indicate that you do not really know them or that you have jumped on to
the Sagarika Ghosh bandwagon.

But it seems to me, that the real underlying anxiety of your article is that you
are concerned with the fortunes of the BJP. This is a good sign, because it
indicates that you are not wholly unredeemable !

You seem to mistakenly think that the BJP will do better without its allegiance
to Hindutva. This is a controversial topic. I won't go there now, except to say that
the BJP's link with Hindu groups is not an accidental thing which can be wished
away. The alternative opposition party that you dream about as an imitation
of the opposition parties in the Western countries, is not applicable to India.

In India, the prevailing ethos is Hindu. Hence, the ideals of a Hindu Rashtra are
derived from the Vedic conception of sarve sukhinah bhavantu (May all beings
be happy). And while commercial success and wordly attainments are also
part of the Hindu ethos, it is not identical with the exploitative and greedy
ethos of Western commerce.

And it is the everyday Indian that carries the ball in India. Liberal Indians may
entertain the conceit that they are the movers and shakers. And the majority of the
every day Indians are Hindus. If you take time off to study the activities of the Sangh
Parivar, they are directed towards the everyday Hindu. It is these Hindus who are
the guarantee of the survival of India both as a nation and as a civilisational entity,
not the Sagarika Ghoshes of CNN IBN.

And most of us overseas Hindus understand this. Our allegiance to Hindu India
cuts across barriers of caste. Some of us come from the upper castes/classes,
some from the middle castes/classes and some from the peasantry and the
Scheduled castes/classes.

All, however, realise that the Liberal Indian and his/her allegiance is usually
influenced by non national considerations, whether it is that of money,power,
influence and so on. At best their nationalism is skin deep, and is not based on
realities on the ground. They are in denial about the Hindu ethos of the nation.

My point is that the BJP is inextricably linked to the Hindus of India. You can
substitute the word 'Hindutva' with some other word, but the content is
the same. And owing to the nature of Hinduism this link is both a binding,
unifying element as in ancient times, prior to the Muslim invasions and the
subsequent arrival of the colonial power, and now is varied and flexible enough to
create a modern polity. It was Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya who said in his
Integral Humanism that there is no harm in intelligent borrowing from the West.
Indeed the phrase 'integral humanism' is borrowed from French philsopher
Jacques Maritain. But Deen Dayalji gives it a Hindu content.

I personally see great days ahead for Bharat, with a reinvigorated BJP, that is
neither a Congress BTeam nor a pale(olive skinned !) imitation of the Western
democracies.

Sincerely,

Dr. Vijaya