Jivha asks: what does a Sikh secularist think about the right to wear turbans (Sikh men) and hijabs (Muslim women)? Doesn't it conflict with secularism, if secularism means limitiations on religious expression in public?
Well, as the internet's leading Sikh secularist, I have a very simple answer:
Secularism is a political power of the state, used to protect the freedoms of individuals. That includes their freedom from religious authority, as well as the freedom to practice whatever religious beliefs they have.
The freedom to religious expression must not conflict with the rights of others, or with the idea of fundamental human rights for everyone. Where there is a conflict, the state has to restrict freedoms. By my definition of secularism, it is possible to be pro-UCC in India (and anti-polygamy, anti-triple talaaq), while also supporting the rights of Muslim women and Sikh men to chosen religious attire in France and the U.S.
The state also has to protect the rights of members of religious communities to drop out, or to deviate from the community norm. So if they allow girls to wear Hijab in school again in France, I believe they should also create special community liasions to help Muslim girls who don't want to wear Hijab.
The Hijab-and-Turban ban is unlikely to happen in the U.S. In the past 15 years, there have been numerous court cases where Muslim girls have sued public (government) schools, and won. There have also been cases by Sikhs in schools, and they have also won. And it goes beyond just school: there have also been cases where Sikhs have sued employers who have clean-shaven or 'no turban' policies. Muslims have sued to have a right to take short breaks at prayer-time, or to have access to a quiet room for prayer. In almost every such case, they've won.
However, turbaned Sikhs are currently not permitted to join the armed forces in the U.S. In the most recent ruling on this, the court stated that military homogeneity is more important than religious accommodation. It's too bad, because there are special provisions for Sikhs to join the military in England and Canada. Also, turbans and beards are generally restricted in most police forces and fire-fighting teams. Some Sikhs have been lobbying to change the policies, and have been partially successful (traffic cops can now wear turbans, but not regular cops).
(See earlier posts on this here and here.)
(Also: see Kingsley)
South Asian Journalists Blogging Panel
Rupa Datta (aka Saheli) has a detailed account of a panel on blogging at last weekend's South Asian Journalists Association conference (via Prashant Kothari). Also see Seshu Badrinath's account.
Seems like the discussion was exciting, but a little general. I'm glad it happened -- it makes a nice counterpoint to the all-white, mostly conservative blogger conference that Sharleen reported on a few weeks ago. In the discussion following that event, Cathy Seipp made it clear she didn't even take the question of race/ethnicity in the blogosphere seriously at all.
Still, notice that most of the discussion at the SAJA panel had to do with journalistic standards rather than ethnicity. I think it's going to be a little while before blogging becomes a significant issue within the broader South Asian diasporic community, or other ethnic US communities. The best known Indian blogger, Anil Dash, writes primarily about high-tech issues -- not so much about politics. A more political, and more broadly relevant, South Asian blogging community might develop in the next couple of years.
In the short run, however, I'm curious to see whether blogs that are based in India can have the effect on politics in India that they've had here in the U.S. The internet version of magazines like Outlook is very lively -- there are readers all around the globe. Also important to mention is the 2002 Tehelka bribery scandal (an expose of BJP officials engineered by a small website called Tehelka.com)... The internet is clearly bubbling with political energy and ideas now. Effectively, we are ripe for an Indian 'Instapundit'. (Jivha would be my nominee)
[Update: see Badmash's comic on this conference!]
Seems like the discussion was exciting, but a little general. I'm glad it happened -- it makes a nice counterpoint to the all-white, mostly conservative blogger conference that Sharleen reported on a few weeks ago. In the discussion following that event, Cathy Seipp made it clear she didn't even take the question of race/ethnicity in the blogosphere seriously at all.
Still, notice that most of the discussion at the SAJA panel had to do with journalistic standards rather than ethnicity. I think it's going to be a little while before blogging becomes a significant issue within the broader South Asian diasporic community, or other ethnic US communities. The best known Indian blogger, Anil Dash, writes primarily about high-tech issues -- not so much about politics. A more political, and more broadly relevant, South Asian blogging community might develop in the next couple of years.
In the short run, however, I'm curious to see whether blogs that are based in India can have the effect on politics in India that they've had here in the U.S. The internet version of magazines like Outlook is very lively -- there are readers all around the globe. Also important to mention is the 2002 Tehelka bribery scandal (an expose of BJP officials engineered by a small website called Tehelka.com)... The internet is clearly bubbling with political energy and ideas now. Effectively, we are ripe for an Indian 'Instapundit'. (Jivha would be my nominee)
[Update: see Badmash's comic on this conference!]
The Times of India has lost it: Bhaskar and the 'Serial Killer' story
Jivha has a great scoop.
The Times of India has used the image of a famous Tamil comedian named Bhaskar in a story on Indian serial killers.
Apparently they decided to use Bhaskar's image after Chennai Online ran a story about Bhaskar entitled 'Serial Killer'. The idea of the story was, Bhaskar 'kills' (his audiences -- he makes them laugh) serially. The TOI even used a head-shot from the Chennai Online story!
Either this was somebody's idea of a joke, or the reporters, editors, and fact-checkers (if they exist?) at TOI have completely lost it. This is one of those events that, at the New York Times, would lead to some serious head-rolling, not to mention lawsuits. Is the Indian blogosphere big enough (or influential enough) to bring down some journalists and editor at India's biggest (and sleaziest) English-language daily?
The Times of India has used the image of a famous Tamil comedian named Bhaskar in a story on Indian serial killers.
Apparently they decided to use Bhaskar's image after Chennai Online ran a story about Bhaskar entitled 'Serial Killer'. The idea of the story was, Bhaskar 'kills' (his audiences -- he makes them laugh) serially. The TOI even used a head-shot from the Chennai Online story!
Either this was somebody's idea of a joke, or the reporters, editors, and fact-checkers (if they exist?) at TOI have completely lost it. This is one of those events that, at the New York Times, would lead to some serious head-rolling, not to mention lawsuits. Is the Indian blogosphere big enough (or influential enough) to bring down some journalists and editor at India's biggest (and sleaziest) English-language daily?
Discussions on the web: Daniel Stolar, Fahrenheit 9/11, Critics who find ways to praise "Dodgeball"
In the Reading Experience, an interesting discussion about St. Louis writer Daniel Stolar's attempts to promote his own first book after his publishing company basically gave up on it. Should writers attempt to use the internet to generate publicity and find readers? Can websites and blogs replace the publishing establishment?
Chuck is having a discussion about what it means that Fahrenheit 9/11 has become a media event, where the work of art beneath has been subsumed.
And in Chicha, a post on lukewarm reviews of low-brow slapstick comedies. What to make of phrases like “A crude comedy that aims low and hits its mark" or “Manages to touch a chord, even if it’s a minor one" ? There's something sickening about them...
Chuck is having a discussion about what it means that Fahrenheit 9/11 has become a media event, where the work of art beneath has been subsumed.
And in Chicha, a post on lukewarm reviews of low-brow slapstick comedies. What to make of phrases like “A crude comedy that aims low and hits its mark" or “Manages to touch a chord, even if it’s a minor one" ? There's something sickening about them...
Ah, politics: Jack Ryan, Chiranjeev Kathuria, Nikki Randhawa-Haley...
Rumors have it (ok, Wonkette) that Jack Ryan is going to have to withdraw his bid for the US Senate. There was a press conference scheduled for tonight, but it was cancelled; perhaps Ryan's withdrawal will come tomorrow (I certainly hope so). Dennis Hastert has, at any rate, pulled his support for Ryan.
So I guess they're not wholly immune to hypocrisy.
Interesting tidbit: a turbaned Sikh ran against Ryan in the Republican primaries. His name is Chiranjeev Kathuria; he is a high-tech millionaire.
If Ryan is out, don't hold your breath for Kathuria. I would guess they would go with Steve Rauschenberger (who has experience in the Illinois State Assembly) or Judy Baar Topinka before Kathuria... That is what the Sun-Times is saying, at any rate.
Kathuria's campaign did not generate much enthusiasm, even amongst U.S. Sikhs. In the debates held in Chicago back in February (see links in the Sun-Times here), Kathuria was questioned about whether he embellished his resume (he says he didn't), whether he really dated Selma Hayek (he did not), and how he might motivate the apathetic voters of Illinois when he himself has never registered to vote before. Nothing doing. Here, ethnic pride has to take a back seat to reality: Kathuria's campaign was essentially just a publicity stunt.
In other news, Nikki Randhawa-Haley won her runoff election to the state legislature in South Carolina. Since there are no democrats running, she wins the seat. It is an event that's been widely covered in the Indian press but ignored here in the U.S. It is certainly much smaller news than the Illinois Senate or the Louisiana Governorship (i.e., Bobby Jindal), but after all, it is South Carolina.
[see my earlier post on this here]
So I guess they're not wholly immune to hypocrisy.
Interesting tidbit: a turbaned Sikh ran against Ryan in the Republican primaries. His name is Chiranjeev Kathuria; he is a high-tech millionaire.
If Ryan is out, don't hold your breath for Kathuria. I would guess they would go with Steve Rauschenberger (who has experience in the Illinois State Assembly) or Judy Baar Topinka before Kathuria... That is what the Sun-Times is saying, at any rate.
Kathuria's campaign did not generate much enthusiasm, even amongst U.S. Sikhs. In the debates held in Chicago back in February (see links in the Sun-Times here), Kathuria was questioned about whether he embellished his resume (he says he didn't), whether he really dated Selma Hayek (he did not), and how he might motivate the apathetic voters of Illinois when he himself has never registered to vote before. Nothing doing. Here, ethnic pride has to take a back seat to reality: Kathuria's campaign was essentially just a publicity stunt.
In other news, Nikki Randhawa-Haley won her runoff election to the state legislature in South Carolina. Since there are no democrats running, she wins the seat. It is an event that's been widely covered in the Indian press but ignored here in the U.S. It is certainly much smaller news than the Illinois Senate or the Louisiana Governorship (i.e., Bobby Jindal), but after all, it is South Carolina.
[see my earlier post on this here]
Tom Friedman parody; Jack Ryan; Polyandry; Timbaland; Sasha's photos
Another Tom Friedman parody. (Via Atrios)
Also via Atrios, a rather shocking bit about Jack Ryan's emerging divorce scandal. He was into some unusual stuff, fine -- not really our business most of the time. But it does become public business when he is being publicly supported by Rick Santorum.
Polyandry in India: Because female foetuses are often aborted in north India, there is now a shortage of women, leading to some unusual family arrangements, Jivha reports.
A brilliant parody of Nigerian money spam at Keywords.
Also check out filmmaker Shashwati Talukdar's blog. I saw her documentary about Mahashweta Devi last year -- nicely done.
Sasha Frere-Jones has the coolest photos on the web. Lots of interesting textures and great color. Where do I get a camera like that? I would love to post nicer-looking original photos. I especially like this one.
One other thing: Sasha was on NPR the other day, talking about Timbaland.
Louis Menand, on punctuation, in this week's New Yorker (via Mumpsimus).
Also recently added: Greg Perry, a poet. I like his rhymed couplets the best, especially at the ends of poems. Rhyme can be nice.
Speaking of rhyme, the Beastie Boys have a new album. Here is a review that is written mostly in rhyme itself.
And Bill Clinton fights back against interviewers obsessed by Monica Lewinsky.
Also via Atrios, a rather shocking bit about Jack Ryan's emerging divorce scandal. He was into some unusual stuff, fine -- not really our business most of the time. But it does become public business when he is being publicly supported by Rick Santorum.
Polyandry in India: Because female foetuses are often aborted in north India, there is now a shortage of women, leading to some unusual family arrangements, Jivha reports.
A brilliant parody of Nigerian money spam at Keywords.
Also check out filmmaker Shashwati Talukdar's blog. I saw her documentary about Mahashweta Devi last year -- nicely done.
Sasha Frere-Jones has the coolest photos on the web. Lots of interesting textures and great color. Where do I get a camera like that? I would love to post nicer-looking original photos. I especially like this one.
One other thing: Sasha was on NPR the other day, talking about Timbaland.
Louis Menand, on punctuation, in this week's New Yorker (via Mumpsimus).
Also recently added: Greg Perry, a poet. I like his rhymed couplets the best, especially at the ends of poems. Rhyme can be nice.
Speaking of rhyme, the Beastie Boys have a new album. Here is a review that is written mostly in rhyme itself.
And Bill Clinton fights back against interviewers obsessed by Monica Lewinsky.
Pankaj Mishra's essays on Communalism in India; Vivekananda and Religious Modernizers
Through SACW, I caught a link to a long Pankaj Mishra piece on the origins of "Hinduism" in Axess, a Swedish magazine of the "liberal arts and social sciences." Mishra's piece appeared in an issue a couple of months back called India Unleashed. The same issue has an essay by Subash Agarwal, who also has a more recent piece written in the wake of the Indian elections (results that disappointed him).
Mishra has written on the subject of the misuse of "Hinduism" several times before. You can find a Feb. 2002 article from the New York Times here. And then an April 2002 a two-part piece on the same topic, this time for the Guardian. He also wrote a piece for the Boston Globe in December 2002 on the same topic (no longer online). And then a Feb 2003 piece for the New York Times Magazine (via SACW), on the anniversary of the assasination of Mohandas K. Gandhi.
These various essays use some of the same material over and over again. Most have one or two immediate anecdotes and first-hand interviews, while relying heavily on accounts of the history of the RSS, V.D. Savarkar, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, Nathuram Godse, a small host of familiar suspects. Most essays also place the movement to take down the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya at the center of the current history of the Hindu right. Ayodhya casts the longest shadow for Mishra: one finds explanations of Ayodhya even in the pieces written in the wake of the February-March 2002 riots in and around Ahmedabad, Gujurat.
Don't get me wrong -- this is all good work. Mishra is performing a valuable function in educating western readers about the history and current status of communalism. But it gets a little repetitive. I'd been longing to see him approach the communal question somewhat more deeply, or with a fresh perspective.
The most recent piece (in Axess) partially fills this demand; it has some surprises in it even as it also rehashes. Most importantly, perhaps, Mishra writes approvingly of people like the poet Mohammad Iqbal (one of the patron saints of Pakistan), Swami Vivekananda (one of the sources of inspiration for the Indian nationalist movement), and Angarika Dharampala (a major figure in the Buddhist-Sinhala nationalist movement in Sri Lanka). All were roughly contemporaneous -- they were active in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Both Vivekananda and Dharmapala made a big splash at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893. Most importantly, however, all were reformers and modernizers. In Mishra's interpretation of Vivekananda in particular, the emphasis is on the inspiration taken from the west, not on the personal connection to Hindu spirituality. Mishra posits a divergence between Vivekananda's approach to worldly sprituality and his master's (Ramakrishna's) inward-looking mysticism. For Mishra, Vivekananda's desire to indigenize western civilization was secondary.
This contradicts what some other recent critics have said about Vivekananda (most notably Meera Nanda, who is directly hostile to both Vivekananda and Gandhi).
For me personally, it raises a 'half-empty/half-full' dilemma. Are religious reformers who develop a modernized theological language to be placed in the camp with the modernizers and secularizers, or are they in fact mainly motivated by strong, primoridal religious feeling, which they merely market with modern trappings? Mishra puts them in the former camp; critics like Nanda place them in the latter.
But this is a manichean question, which overlooks the possibility of situating reformers in between the religious and secular viewpoints. People like Vivekananda and Dharampala are secularizers, but specifically within their respective religious communities. By ignoring this middle-ground, I think Mishra oversimplifies the history of religious reform movements in South Asia. He makes this oversimplification for a good reason -- he wants to show that the stories told by the Hindutva advocates today about the history of the concept of "Hinduism" are on very thin ice. But the oversimplification leads to a somewhat patchy history.
Mishra has written on the subject of the misuse of "Hinduism" several times before. You can find a Feb. 2002 article from the New York Times here. And then an April 2002 a two-part piece on the same topic, this time for the Guardian. He also wrote a piece for the Boston Globe in December 2002 on the same topic (no longer online). And then a Feb 2003 piece for the New York Times Magazine (via SACW), on the anniversary of the assasination of Mohandas K. Gandhi.
These various essays use some of the same material over and over again. Most have one or two immediate anecdotes and first-hand interviews, while relying heavily on accounts of the history of the RSS, V.D. Savarkar, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, Nathuram Godse, a small host of familiar suspects. Most essays also place the movement to take down the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya at the center of the current history of the Hindu right. Ayodhya casts the longest shadow for Mishra: one finds explanations of Ayodhya even in the pieces written in the wake of the February-March 2002 riots in and around Ahmedabad, Gujurat.
Don't get me wrong -- this is all good work. Mishra is performing a valuable function in educating western readers about the history and current status of communalism. But it gets a little repetitive. I'd been longing to see him approach the communal question somewhat more deeply, or with a fresh perspective.
The most recent piece (in Axess) partially fills this demand; it has some surprises in it even as it also rehashes. Most importantly, perhaps, Mishra writes approvingly of people like the poet Mohammad Iqbal (one of the patron saints of Pakistan), Swami Vivekananda (one of the sources of inspiration for the Indian nationalist movement), and Angarika Dharampala (a major figure in the Buddhist-Sinhala nationalist movement in Sri Lanka). All were roughly contemporaneous -- they were active in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Both Vivekananda and Dharmapala made a big splash at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893. Most importantly, however, all were reformers and modernizers. In Mishra's interpretation of Vivekananda in particular, the emphasis is on the inspiration taken from the west, not on the personal connection to Hindu spirituality. Mishra posits a divergence between Vivekananda's approach to worldly sprituality and his master's (Ramakrishna's) inward-looking mysticism. For Mishra, Vivekananda's desire to indigenize western civilization was secondary.
This contradicts what some other recent critics have said about Vivekananda (most notably Meera Nanda, who is directly hostile to both Vivekananda and Gandhi).
For me personally, it raises a 'half-empty/half-full' dilemma. Are religious reformers who develop a modernized theological language to be placed in the camp with the modernizers and secularizers, or are they in fact mainly motivated by strong, primoridal religious feeling, which they merely market with modern trappings? Mishra puts them in the former camp; critics like Nanda place them in the latter.
But this is a manichean question, which overlooks the possibility of situating reformers in between the religious and secular viewpoints. People like Vivekananda and Dharampala are secularizers, but specifically within their respective religious communities. By ignoring this middle-ground, I think Mishra oversimplifies the history of religious reform movements in South Asia. He makes this oversimplification for a good reason -- he wants to show that the stories told by the Hindutva advocates today about the history of the concept of "Hinduism" are on very thin ice. But the oversimplification leads to a somewhat patchy history.
Write a Caption for this Photo
My best effort: "Now check out my game face. Gurr. Flip-flopper! Gurr."
[Note: This photo comes from AP/Yahoo]
Rhetorical Suggestions for the anti-Hinduism Studies crowd
My first thought this morning was: When will these people stop? (I wrote a small post about the Hinduism Studies controversy two months ago)
But then rather than write another outraged post, I'll merely offer some friendly stylistic suggestions for Rajiv Malhotra, Sankrant Sanu, Vishal Agarwal, etc. I naturally have no credibility on my own, being an English professor and a non-Hindu.
Thus, I am merely trying to help you all get your point across a little better. I have no particular animosity towards you or towards Hinduism; at times you make good points (Sanu finds some pretty wild quotes from Courtright here, and makes a valid contrast between the attitude of Islamicists and that of Hindu Studies people). I know that the Washington Post took Doniger's side. But I should say that you are being dissed by the respectable media not because of racism or because of some big anti-Hindu conspiracy. Rather, you simply don't make your case very well. Here are some tips in response to Sankrant Sanu's latest in Beliefnet:
1. Currency. Try reading a book by Wendy Doniger written after 1980. Try her painstaking translation of selections of the Rg Veda, for instance. And what do you make of her translation [and scholarship] on the Kama Sutra? (And what do you make of her comments on Harry Potter? Ok, just kidding...)
Paul Courtright's book on Ganesha is also quite old. The fact that you find offensive statements mainly in books written 25 years ago weakens your claims about the 'centrality' of this particular pair of scholars to Hinduism studies today.
Or take Jeffrey Kripal's point about his book Kali's Child, which has been one of the books by white American scholars singled out for inaccuracies and distortions. In his response to the controversy on Sulekha, Kripal mentions that he has apologized for the inaccuracies. In this piece, he also defends his (and many other scholars') interpretation of Sri Ramakrishna's homoerotic interests [I haven't read any of Ramakrishna's works, in Bengali or English, and will remain agnostic on this]
But he also mentions that almost no one has ever read or bought his book!
Hm, 100 copies. And this was debated in the Lok Sahba (Indian Parliament)? Clearly, somebody must stop Jeffrey Kripal! His book is contaminating dozens of minds. Seriously speaking: is Jeff Kripal's work really central to Hinduism studies?
2. Civility. Sanu writes: The website Sulekha.com invited Wendy Doniger to offer a response to one of the early articles that Rajiv Malhotra had written. She refused. My suggestion: Try addressing Doniger and her colleagues civilly. The reason she has thus far refused to engage with Malhotra is that his language has been rude and his tactics underhanded (as Kripal's story shows). Tell Malhotra to hire an editor to weed out all the ad hominem nastiness (I'll volunteer), and then try starting over again.
To Sankrant Sanu's credit, his articles in Sulekha and Beliefnet meet my criteria of respectfulness, though there are lines that I have questions about.
3. Pick important claims, and disregard small ones. This, for instance, is not terribly impressive:
It's hard to get anybody excited about 'contradictions', and it distracts from your main points, which are sometimes good ones. If the omission of trivial criticisms means your essays are going to be a little shorter from now on, I, for one, am not going to complain.
4. Don't try and minimize death threats. Death threats, even over the internet, are a very big problem. They are, in fact, a federal offense. So when you say things like this, I think you destroy your credibility:
Yes, "apparently" they didn't want to allow death threats on their site! They are motivated by a small desire not to be sued, or to be sent to jail. This equivocating looks bad for you, and is anyway irrelevant, since the Hinduism Studies scholars don't run Petition Online.
5. Know your field. This passage is telling:
Wrong! There is an immense amount of psychoanlytic Jewish and Christian studies material out there. Look up Daniel Boyarin, for instance. And they aren't marginal, they're mainstream.
6. Accurately report history. I didn't realize this the last time I posted, but this controversy is older than Malhotra's infamous piece published on Sulekha.com in 2000. There were stirrings of it on various email lists in the late 1990s.
But closer inspection of who has been participating in these discussions reveals that Hinduism Studies has not united as a group against the 'outsiders'. Malhotra himself participated formally in at least one panel at the American Academy of Religion in 2000. You can't get more institutionalized than that!
(Another 'insider' resource is this one, published by Hinduism studies scholars as Washington University in St. Louis. Clearly that Religion department, at least, is taking this debate very seriously.)
7. Finally, Don't be so prudish. It seems to me that what galls the anti-HS crowd the most is the seeming obsession with sex and sexuality amongst academics in the 1970s. Indeed, the scholars seemed to discover things about Ganesha, Vishnu, Kali, etc. that I find to be a little, er, imaginative. But keep in mind that that was the 1970s -- today the relish for saying the word 'phallus' every 10 seconds is diminished. Today's academics are like Madonna; they are over the whole sex thing now.
Even so, don't sound as if you are trying to put a chastity belt around the Hindu tradition (see point 9 in Patrick Colm Hogan's Ten Reasons Why Anyone Who Cares About Hinduism Should Be Grateful to Wendy Doniger). There is a considerable amount of sexuality in the Ramayana, for instance, and while it is necessary to provide context and remain sensitive, this material can and should be studied and analyzed. Why not contribute your own analyses of this material?
But then rather than write another outraged post, I'll merely offer some friendly stylistic suggestions for Rajiv Malhotra, Sankrant Sanu, Vishal Agarwal, etc. I naturally have no credibility on my own, being an English professor and a non-Hindu.
Thus, I am merely trying to help you all get your point across a little better. I have no particular animosity towards you or towards Hinduism; at times you make good points (Sanu finds some pretty wild quotes from Courtright here, and makes a valid contrast between the attitude of Islamicists and that of Hindu Studies people). I know that the Washington Post took Doniger's side. But I should say that you are being dissed by the respectable media not because of racism or because of some big anti-Hindu conspiracy. Rather, you simply don't make your case very well. Here are some tips in response to Sankrant Sanu's latest in Beliefnet:
1. Currency. Try reading a book by Wendy Doniger written after 1980. Try her painstaking translation of selections of the Rg Veda, for instance. And what do you make of her translation [and scholarship] on the Kama Sutra? (And what do you make of her comments on Harry Potter? Ok, just kidding...)
Paul Courtright's book on Ganesha is also quite old. The fact that you find offensive statements mainly in books written 25 years ago weakens your claims about the 'centrality' of this particular pair of scholars to Hinduism studies today.
Or take Jeffrey Kripal's point about his book Kali's Child, which has been one of the books by white American scholars singled out for inaccuracies and distortions. In his response to the controversy on Sulekha, Kripal mentions that he has apologized for the inaccuracies. In this piece, he also defends his (and many other scholars') interpretation of Sri Ramakrishna's homoerotic interests [I haven't read any of Ramakrishna's works, in Bengali or English, and will remain agnostic on this]
But he also mentions that almost no one has ever read or bought his book!
I regret to say that Rajiv gets just about everything wrong about my ideas and translations. If the first requirement of a serious intellectual discussion is to get the other person's ideas and perpectives correct, what the Indian philosophical tradition calls the purva-paksa, then this has never been a serious intellectual discussion. Indeed, Rajiv gets it all so wrong that I am left wondering if he has even ever read the book. I doubt very much that he has. This is a pattern I have seen again and again over the years: lots of offended feelings over a book few have actually read. As I have already pointed out, I know for a fact that very few people have ever read the book, as I know exactly what and where the sales have been, and they have been absolutely miniscule by any trade standards. For example, no more than a hundred copies have ever been sold in India. Repeatedly, then, I am put on trial in almost total ignorance of what I have written.
Hm, 100 copies. And this was debated in the Lok Sahba (Indian Parliament)? Clearly, somebody must stop Jeffrey Kripal! His book is contaminating dozens of minds. Seriously speaking: is Jeff Kripal's work really central to Hinduism studies?
2. Civility. Sanu writes: The website Sulekha.com invited Wendy Doniger to offer a response to one of the early articles that Rajiv Malhotra had written. She refused. My suggestion: Try addressing Doniger and her colleagues civilly. The reason she has thus far refused to engage with Malhotra is that his language has been rude and his tactics underhanded (as Kripal's story shows). Tell Malhotra to hire an editor to weed out all the ad hominem nastiness (I'll volunteer), and then try starting over again.
To Sankrant Sanu's credit, his articles in Sulekha and Beliefnet meet my criteria of respectfulness, though there are lines that I have questions about.
3. Pick important claims, and disregard small ones. This, for instance, is not terribly impressive:
In her article on Hinduism in Encarta, which serves as a mainstream introduction for general audiences, Doniger highlights what she calls “contradictions” in the Hindu tradition--often using deprecating parenthetical asides, unusual for such an encyclopedia entry.
It's hard to get anybody excited about 'contradictions', and it distracts from your main points, which are sometimes good ones. If the omission of trivial criticisms means your essays are going to be a little shorter from now on, I, for one, am not going to complain.
4. Don't try and minimize death threats. Death threats, even over the internet, are a very big problem. They are, in fact, a federal offense. So when you say things like this, I think you destroy your credibility:
When this petition was online, a few posts among thousands contained some angry language against the scholars. The anonymity of the internet easily allows many forms of verbal diarrhea visible in practically any large internet message board, especially on a contentious issue. Because of the posted threats, the organizers of the petition closed it down. Even though the petition had tremendous momentum, the organizers apparently did not want to provide a platform for personal threats of any kind.
Yes, "apparently" they didn't want to allow death threats on their site! They are motivated by a small desire not to be sued, or to be sent to jail. This equivocating looks bad for you, and is anyway irrelevant, since the Hinduism Studies scholars don't run Petition Online.
5. Know your field. This passage is telling:
Criticism of crude academic writing on Hinduism is coming from the community because it is not present in the academy. The Christian or Jewish community need not overly concern itself with psychoanalytical fantasies about Moses or Jesus because there is a vast body of scholars within the academy who would take this on. A Courtright-like narrative with far-fetched psychoanalytical interpretations would be marginalized in the study of Jesus or Moses.
Wrong! There is an immense amount of psychoanlytic Jewish and Christian studies material out there. Look up Daniel Boyarin, for instance. And they aren't marginal, they're mainstream.
6. Accurately report history. I didn't realize this the last time I posted, but this controversy is older than Malhotra's infamous piece published on Sulekha.com in 2000. There were stirrings of it on various email lists in the late 1990s.
But closer inspection of who has been participating in these discussions reveals that Hinduism Studies has not united as a group against the 'outsiders'. Malhotra himself participated formally in at least one panel at the American Academy of Religion in 2000. You can't get more institutionalized than that!
(Another 'insider' resource is this one, published by Hinduism studies scholars as Washington University in St. Louis. Clearly that Religion department, at least, is taking this debate very seriously.)
7. Finally, Don't be so prudish. It seems to me that what galls the anti-HS crowd the most is the seeming obsession with sex and sexuality amongst academics in the 1970s. Indeed, the scholars seemed to discover things about Ganesha, Vishnu, Kali, etc. that I find to be a little, er, imaginative. But keep in mind that that was the 1970s -- today the relish for saying the word 'phallus' every 10 seconds is diminished. Today's academics are like Madonna; they are over the whole sex thing now.
Even so, don't sound as if you are trying to put a chastity belt around the Hindu tradition (see point 9 in Patrick Colm Hogan's Ten Reasons Why Anyone Who Cares About Hinduism Should Be Grateful to Wendy Doniger). There is a considerable amount of sexuality in the Ramayana, for instance, and while it is necessary to provide context and remain sensitive, this material can and should be studied and analyzed. Why not contribute your own analyses of this material?
Bicycling along the Connecticut shoreline; Doonesbury and Zippy
[From a moving bicycle, with a camera phone, trying not to fall off]
Garry Trudeau owns one of these islands off the Connecticut shoreline somewhere in the vicinity of Stony Creek and Branford. He stays there part of the year. People -- not only anti-social, left-leaning cartoonists -- really live there; mail comes by boat.
Zippy also has a Connecticut connection, apparently.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
[This is the best shot my little camera could manage after dark.]
Ladysmith Black Mambazo (or this), New Haven Green, International Festival of Arts and Ideas.
There were 2-3000 people on the lawn for one in a series of free concerts. It was hard to see, so really you just had to listen. This was quite pleasant to do, since the sound was nice. Nevertheless, I think the crowd was more interested in the Sunday evening picnic than in the acapella vocalizing largely in Zulu (and sometimes in English). The lack of engagement is more or less inevitable with the general consumption of 'world music'. Hard-core fans might take the time to learn the songs and assemble meanings, but the rest of us are listening a little vacantly.
Review of Control Room
[Al Jazeera journalist Tariq Ayoub, right before being killed by a U.S. bomb]
In 2001, Jehane Noujaim was one of the directors of Startup.com, one of the best documentaries of that year. I had family members who were working for tech startups in the bay area at that time (startups that were, it now turns out, doomed), and the incredible rise and fall of that particular pair of ambitious young men was profoundly fascinating to me. The story told itself.
Control Room is also good, though it is much harder to watch. It leaves you with more questions than answers; maybe that's due to its more ambitious, and more chaotic, choice of subject. Still, this review, by Joshua Tanzer in OffOffOff is certainly much too harsh. And yet, despite his dislike for the film, Tanzer writes some of the most compelling praise for the film I've seen in any review:
If the "Control Room" grab bag yields one worthwhile observation, it is the difference between the thoroughly managed American press corps, taking its daily handouts from military spokesman several countries away from the action, and the Al Jazeera crews getting the news firsthand from Iraqis on the ground. The Americans know they're being herded like cattle, and yet their lack of perspective keeps them from understanding what they're missing. Some are more clueless frat boys than seasoned observers of Middle Eastern affairs.
This is the crucial distinction of the war coverage in 2003-2004, as it was in 1991. When a war consists primarily of aerial bombing, there are two ways to cover the story, and one of them is wrong. The story as seen from the American side consists of some people pushing buttons in airplanes and returning to base, mission accomplished. The real story, however, is visible only from the ground, where the effects of those bombs are felt. The Arab networks were there, while the Westerners (with the notable exception of the British paper The Independent) were not. The war, and its effect on Iraqi morale, look completely different from the "Mission Accomplished" view we got in the U.S.
The Arab journalists, in short, were doing their jobs. U.S. journalists, generally speaking, were not.
Other Critics Though Control Room is scoring a 96% approval rating in the 'Tomatometer', there are a number of American reviewers who have been critical. This review, by Keith Uhlich in Slant magazine, accuses Noujaim of some pro-Al Jazeera bias. That bias is real, but I wasn't bothered by it in the film. In fact, the 'slant' of Control Room effectively deflates the immense and overwhelming pro-US bias in last year's 'embedded' war coverage. Stanley Kauffman, in The New Republic, disagrees, saying that in fact the current era is of media 'bilateralism'; according to him, these images and viewpoints were available in the U.S. even last year. I disagree with Kaufmann -- it's technically true, but doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of Americans only saw one side of the story.
Have you heard of Tariq Ajoub The film brings up a disturbing example of media unilateralism that might not be familiar to people: there was a Coalition attack on April 8 2003 on Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV offices in Baghdad. The U.S. claimed that hostile fire was coming from the building where the Al Jazeera reporters were located, a claim which hasn't been verified (or disproved). But what is disturbing is that the Arab networks that were bombed that morning were in three separate houses. To me, that repetition makes it highly likely that the bombings were specifically targeting the Arab reporters. The film interprets the gesture as more a threat to Al Jazeera -- back off, or else -- and not a direct assault. Threat or no, an Al Jazeera reporter named Tariq Ayoub was killed in the attack. It was big news in the rest of the world, but reporters here in the U.S. didn't ask too many questions or point fingers.
Ultimately, what Control Room offers is the awareness that no one can really be sure of the evidence they see -- not Arabs or western progressives, not pro-US hawks. It's not that objectivity doesn't exist; rather, it's almost impossible to evaluate evidence for current media on either side while events are still in play, because there is never enough reliable information with which to do so. The following words, from A.O. Scott in the New York Times, strike me as just:
The great value of the impersonal, observational technique Ms. Noujaim employs is that it immerses the viewer in the contingency and complexity of events as they happen. Whatever your opinions about the war, the conduct of the journalists who covered it and the role of Al Jazeera in that coverage, you are likely to emerge from "Control Room" touched, exhilarated and a little off-balance, with your certainties scrambled and your assumptions shaken. All of which makes it an indispensable example of the inquisitive, self-questioning democratic spirit that is its deep and vexed subject.
The lines in the film from Rumsfeld ("Once someone begins lying, how can you trust them?") and Bush ("I hope they [the American POWs] are being treated humanely") are now so obviously and fatally ironic that Al-Jazeera's bias, as well as the bias of Noujaim, do seem to be in closer proximity of the truth than CNN and NBC. (See Nathan Newman's blog on this)
As mentioned earlier, there are challenges to watching this film. The Al-Jazeera reporter Hassan Ibrahim (who used to work for the BBC) is often entertaining, but he is used too much. And as Danzer points out, the coverage is banal at times -- I would almost have preferred the raw Jazeera coverage itself. And the editing is raw; it made me feel edgy and nervous (it's certainly not "relentlessly entertaining" as Megan Lehmann put it in the New York Post). I know this is part of the Pennebaker vérité style... still.
Bottom line: I recommend Control Room. Even if you walk away from it feeling disturbed edgy, you'll be glad you saw it.
[UPDATE: See Chuck Tryon's post on the film]
[Second update: this post has been tweaked a little for clarity & continuity]
Secularism news -- India and England
Asghar Ali Engineer [note, the last time I tried, their website was down] has an op-ed in the Indian Express today, on banning the practice known as 'triple talaq'. In India, as many of you probably know, each major religious group has its own marriage law. The Hindu Marriage Act has been reformed somewhat over the years, especially regarding the right to divorce, the obligation of men to pay alimony and child support, and women's right to property. However, the Muslim marriage act has not been reformed. Consequently, polygamy is still legal for Muslims only, as is the practice whereby Muslim men can divorce their wives saying simply ("I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you"), and not be required to give any alimony or further support whatsoever. Asghar Ali Engineer argues that the practice is wrong, and should be made illegal in India; I agree.
Read Jivha's take on this.
Also, the Delhi psyhoanalyst Ashis Nandy has for a long time been associated with the position that because secularism is foreign to India, Indians need to implement their own, indigenous version of religious tolerance. The recent problems with communalism in India, according to him, are a result of using a political method that is alien to Indian soil. He has been attacked many, many times by writers from different sides of the political spectrum, including Aijaz Ahmad, Rajeev Bhargava, Achin Vanaik, Meera Nanda, and most recently, Kuldip Nayar. In this week's Outlook India, Nandy responds (again).
[I might venture a comment on this a bit later. Coffee still taking effect...]
Finally, secularism issues in England, with this case. See the short entry on it at Crooked Timber and, as always, the discussion of the issue there. Should a Muslim girl named Shabina Begum be allowed to wear a special kind of gown called a jibab? The UK allows Muslim girls to wear simple headscarves (hijab), and her particular school's uniform policy already allows girls to wear the traditional Indo/Pak dress called salwaar kameez, which is satisfactory to the vast majority of England's Muslims. This is the girl's own interpretation of Islam, and it's one she's arrived at recently -- earlier she wore hijab and salwaar kameez. To what degree should the school, which otherwise has a strict uniform policy, accommodate it?
Read Jivha's take on this.
Also, the Delhi psyhoanalyst Ashis Nandy has for a long time been associated with the position that because secularism is foreign to India, Indians need to implement their own, indigenous version of religious tolerance. The recent problems with communalism in India, according to him, are a result of using a political method that is alien to Indian soil. He has been attacked many, many times by writers from different sides of the political spectrum, including Aijaz Ahmad, Rajeev Bhargava, Achin Vanaik, Meera Nanda, and most recently, Kuldip Nayar. In this week's Outlook India, Nandy responds (again).
[I might venture a comment on this a bit later. Coffee still taking effect...]
Finally, secularism issues in England, with this case. See the short entry on it at Crooked Timber and, as always, the discussion of the issue there. Should a Muslim girl named Shabina Begum be allowed to wear a special kind of gown called a jibab? The UK allows Muslim girls to wear simple headscarves (hijab), and her particular school's uniform policy already allows girls to wear the traditional Indo/Pak dress called salwaar kameez, which is satisfactory to the vast majority of England's Muslims. This is the girl's own interpretation of Islam, and it's one she's arrived at recently -- earlier she wore hijab and salwaar kameez. To what degree should the school, which otherwise has a strict uniform policy, accommodate it?
Luxury Lofts
Advertisement: Luxury lofts for sale in downtown New Haven. Large, spacious windows; lots of air.
Close to all amenities, including abandoned stadium, loud, tacky nightclubs, pompous art gallery, crime, and abysmal lack of street parking.
Starting in the mid $300s.
Some new blogs; PJ Harvey
In addition to great taste in music (I'm loving the new P.J. Harvey album), All About George has an intimidating list of links. Here are some I've liked:
Amit Asaravala, writer for Wired
Beats and Rants (wouldn't it sound better the other way around...?)
Sasha Frere-Jones (journalist)
Nelson George (writer; IMDB)
Culture Cat (third wave feminism; she spells the plural of 'encomium' encomia; I approve)
Damn Foreigner (another Desi blogger)
But I'm still only up to 'D'...
Amit Asaravala, writer for Wired
Beats and Rants (wouldn't it sound better the other way around...?)
Sasha Frere-Jones (journalist)
Nelson George (writer; IMDB)
Culture Cat (third wave feminism; she spells the plural of 'encomium' encomia; I approve)
Damn Foreigner (another Desi blogger)
But I'm still only up to 'D'...
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